Year 1, Day 310: 1 Samuel 24

Character

1 Samuel 24 is an excellent story to lift up the nature of a godly man.  Saul comes right into David’s presence.  Temptation is all around David telling him to end the struggle right here and now.  David makes a tough choice to not act upon human nature but to act upon God’s nature.  David relies on God.

Let’s look at each one of these steps a little more deeply.

Blind Luck

Saul meanders right into David’s space.  Saul doesn’t know that he has put his life on the line, but he has.  By all rights – according to a human perspective, at least – Saul should have died.  There are two lessons here.  First, sometimes we stumble into trouble without knowing it.  Sometimes the best planning in the world can’t foresee every danger.  When we trust in God, we know that regardless of how good we plan we rest in His hands.  {No, I’m not saying Saul trusted in God.  Saul just got lucky!  But we can learn a religious lesson from Saul’s “luck.”}  Second, so long as you are surrounded by godly people your mistakes won’t be to your harm.  Saul has made David an enemy, but that does not mean that Saul’s life is harmed by this chance encounter.  Saul’s head rests in David’s hands; because David is godly, Saul’s head is spared.

Temptation or Character?

The next dynamic of this chapter is the temptation that David feels.  Some – if not many – in David’s camp are telling him that he should kill Saul while he has the chance.  If David acted on this advice, nobody would have found fault with it.  Saul has made it clear that David is his enemy.  Saul has made it clear that he desires to kill David.  At this point, killing Saul is almost self-defense!  But David does not feel the need to listen to human advice.  David does feel the need to put his trust in God.  David spares Saul and displays grace rather than falling into temptation.  So it is with a godly person.  Godly people follow God’s ways even when the temptation to act according to the ways of the world is justified.

Godly Confrontation

Continuing with the theme of human nature versus godly nature, we can turn to the part of the story where David comes out of the cave and holds up the corner of Saul’s robe to Saul.  Human nature would have at least gloated over the victory.  Human nature would have taken the opportunity to illustrate how stupid Saul is and how smart David is.  Human nature would have taken the opportunity to put Saul down in an attempt to lift David up.  But this is not how David acts.  Not once does David put Saul down.  In fact, David lifts Saul up by calling him the “anointed of the Lord” and even “my father.” 

As an aside, imagine how Jonathon’s heart must have swelled in a good way to hear David respect Jonathon’s father even when he knows Saul doesn’t deserve it!

As David lifts up Saul, Saul realizes the error of his ways.  Because David hasn’t insulted him, Saul doesn’t need to get defensive.  Saul simply understands what he has been doing and repents of it.  So it is with godly people.  If repentance is to come from the sinner, it will only happen when God displays his grace through the godly people around them so that the sinner may see his sin, may recognize the disastrous effects, and may repent.

Further, notice the humbleness that David has in the exchange.  Not only does David exalt Saul in the titles he gives to Saul, but he also humbles himself.  David refers to himself as a “dead dog” and a “flea.”  Now, I’m not saying that we should always use deprecating terms for ourselves.  But David does so here to save face for Saul.  David humbles himself so that his building up of Saul might grow.  Godly people don’t mind putting themselves in a lowly position if it means building up a brother, helping to save a sinner, or leading a fallen comrade to repentance!

Finally, David relies ultimately on God.  David cannot know that Saul will repent as we see happening at the end of the chapter.  For all David knows he let the tiger out of the trap and the tiger is now going to try and bite him right back!  But that matters not to David, because David has put his reliance upon God.  David has been saved by God’s hand enough to know that God can save him in any circumstance if it is God’s will.  Honestly, this is perhaps the greatest learning of this whole passage.  David cares more about God’s will than his own.  So long as David does the will of the Lord, then let the Lord deal with David as the Lord sees fitting.  {Yeah, that’s a really tough concept to truly buy into if you think about it!}

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