This has been a whirlwind of a week for our family. Spring has sprung and spare time, if there is such a thing, has been taken to make prepare and plant a garden that will hopefully be in full bloom on our daughter's wedding day. Needless to say, I have fallen behind in my Scripture reading and summarizing and I can sure feel it. My spirit actually starts to grumble when I have been out of the Word for a few days. It's a bit like hunger pangs. I even start to get a bit testy as if my blood sugar is dipping. Luckily yesterday day I was able to have a long luxurious 'meal' as I spent time catching up on Saul and David.
Now these two guy are really something. One plagued with insecurity. The other enormous self confidence. Taken to the extreme these opposite traits both would have adverse effects on the people around them. Saul would be a self-focused and distracted in is campaign to crush his seeming competition leaving his country at risk from the enemy while David would go about the countryside taking whatever he wanted to the point of possibly becoming "obnoxious to his own people." [1 Samuel 27:12]
There were a couple of things that stuck with me throughout the reading. Maybe because it is an election year my thoughts were drawn to the parts on leadership. The first was about how to choose a leader for a nation or should I say, "How not to choose a leader." As we see in this story, it is a bad idea to make this decision based on stature or let's say visibility. Just because someone is literally 'head and shoulders above the rest', and has the best chance of winning the election doesn't necessarily mean he would be a 'winner' when it comes to running the country. If we want to choose successfully, what matters is what he's got going on on the inside. God tells Samuel that very thing when sets off to find a replacement for the very tall and good-looking Saul. [1 Samuel 16:7]
Secondly, I am impressed with how David, aside from a couple practical jokes, acted with respect toward the position Saul held as king even when Saul had lost his mind and was passionately pursuing him with the purposes of murdering him. Over and over, David repeated the fact, 1 cannot "lay my hand on him; for he is the anointed of the Lord.” David respected the fact that God approved the choice of Saul as king and he was not going to question that. He also led by example calling others out when they were tempted to act against the king and even instructed the nation to honor him in death.
We have so many freedoms in this country. We can choose to say what we want and exercise our right to vote by wisely selecting the one who will lead us. I believe that the examples God has included in his story here in the books of Samuel should give us something to at least consider on how to conduct those choices.
Now, on to the rest of the story of David as king. I hope you are keeping up in the reading through the Bible. Don't let yourselves become ravenous with hunger for the Word. No calorie counting here. This is one time you can 'eat' as much as you want and become fat and satisfied.
When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, Lord God Almighty. Jeremiah 15:16
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