Year 4, Day 332: 2 Samuel 15

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Approval, Ambition

• Approval: We all need to feel as though we are accepted.  When we seek the approval of God, our Up is in the right place.  But when we seek the approval of other people besides God, we open the door to pursuing false gods and risk putting someone or something other than God in our Up position.
• 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.

2 Samuel 15 is all about the set-up for Absalom’s revolt.  In this revolt, we can see two of the three broad categories of sinfulness that I’ve been talking a lot about lately.  We’ve spoken often about David’s reoccurring failure in appetite – specifically sexual appetite.  Today we’ll get to examine Absalom through the lens of ambition.  But to get to Ambition, Absalom moves through approval.

Absalom wants to rule over Israel.  He wants to be king.  Absalom is completely and totally driven by ambition.  For Absalom, it’s all about him, his name in lights, and being in the seat of power.  Absalom is a driven man, willing to do anything to accomplish his goals.

In order to get to where he wants to get, however, Absalom needs to go through the lens of Approval.  But here’s the catch.  You’ll notice that it isn’t God’s approval that Absalom seeks.  He’s not really interested in whether or not God approves of his plan to become king.  No, Absalom seeks the approval of mankind.  He gets some of the leaders to follow him.  He gets the general populace to follow him.  He seeks after the approval of the people to get what he wants.  He manipulates the people by whispering into their ears the words that they want to hear.

Which, of course, leads us back to talk about Absalom’s ambition.  Notice that Absalom is seeking his own dream, not God’s dream for Absalom!  When Absalom begins to seek after the approval of the people and not the approval of God, we get our first hint that Absalom’s ambition isn’t God’s ambition for him, either.  Not once do we hear that Absalom seeks out the Lord.  In fact, Absalom even drums up some false story about needing to go worship God at Hebron in order to begin his revolt!  This is not God’s plan.  Absalom is using God to accomplish his own ambitious plan.

This is scary, but extremely common in the world today.  People all over the world are all about accomplishing their plan rather than humbling themselves and being ambition for what God desires of them.

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