Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Appetite, Ambition
- Appetite:
We all have needs that need to be filled. When we allow
ourselves to be filled with the people and things that God brings into our
life, we will be satisfied because our In will be in proper focus. But
when we try to fill ourselves with our own desires we end up frustrated by
an insatiable hunger.
- Ambition:
We all need a goal to which we can strive. When our ambition
comes from God, we find fulfillment in our obedience into that for which
we have been equipped because our Out is in proper focus. But
when our ambition comes from ourselves, we find ourselves chasing after
our own dreams and trying to find fulfillment in accomplishments of our
own making.
In this chapter we get a chance to see David making some
interesting decisions. In spite of being
saved more than once from Saul’s hand, David suddenly becomes convinced that he
cannot be safe any longer among the Hebrew people. He heads towards the Philistines to make a
living.
This is where he really opens himself up for sin. While he is among the Philistines, he has to
provide for himself and his soldiers.
His need for appetite causes him to go out and fend for himself. He takes to raiding other villages. However, because he doesn’t want word to get
back to the Philistines that he is doing the raiding, he is slaughtering the
villages: men, women, and children. The
physical needs of himself and his men cause David to fall into even darker
sinful patterns.
Of course, ambition plays a role in this as well. David needs to make a name for himself and
show the Philistines that he will not be leaching off of them while he lives
among them. So David continues to make
raids not only to support his own people but to prove himself to the ungodly
people around him. Appetite and ambition
often go hand in hand as we stray from the place that God would prefer us to
live.
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