Year 4, Day 315: 1 Samuel 29

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Competency

• Competency: Being able to accomplish what one is called to do.

Honestly, some times when I am reading through the stories of David I feel like I am trapped in the 1980’s sit-com “The Facts of Life.”  The theme song of that television show had lyrics that went something like this: “You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and then you have the facts of life.”  With David I feel like it is a perpetual flip between taking the good and the bad.

Not that I have any room to gloat, mind you.  I’m sure God feels the same way about me.

But look at what David demonstrates himself to be competent about in this chapter.  David has been going out and raiding Canaanite villages and killing everyone that he finds in those villages.  He’s been killing innocent people to hide his actions from Achish.  Then David completely lies when he asks Achish, “What have I done?”  David knows full well what he has been doing and hiding from Achish.  When David asks, “What have you found in your servant from the day I entered your service until now,” David knows full well that Achish has nothing to offer because he’s been actively covering up his tracks and hiding them from Achish.  We also hear of David’s switching allegiance.  What title does David give to Achish?  David calls him “my lord the king.”  David’s allegiance to God is on shaky ground here when he starts calling Achish his “lord the king.”

David is competent.  But in this particular instance David is competent at all the wrong things.  He is a manipulator, mover, shaker, liar, and all around deceptive influence in the world.

Again, though.  To be honest, am I any better?  I don’t lift this up to David’s shame.  I lift this up to give me an opportunity to look at myself and wonder what I am truly competent at doing, too.  I know I’m competent in my sinfulness.  I hope and pray that like David I am periodically competent in the ways of God as well.  I hope that as my incompetence is exposed that people will say of me that I am a “man after God’s own heart, too.”

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