Find a winner
…and copy them.
Makes great business sense. Makes even better spiritual sense
Where I come from, when the Almighty calls someone a man after his own heart; that is someone worth emulating.
We know him by many titles. Slayer of Goliath, Israel’s greatest King, Writer of the Psalms etc. What God calls David however, is what makes him a template for study.
A man after my own heart
Yes David made his share of mistakes, but when all is said and done, God still chose to elevate him with a title that remains enviable even today.
Buried among the adventure that was David’s life is a less told story not of something he did, but of something he chose not to do.
Before ascending the throne, the shepherd boy turned giant- slayer was a royal fugitive being pursued by his Father-in- law – who doubled as Israel’s king.
In a twist for the ages, Saul on his hunt for David found himself unwittingly at the mercy of his prey after stepping unattended into a cave1.
It’s one thing to have an enemy at your mercy, it’s another thing to have at your mercy a mortal enemy solely motivated by jealousy.
Call it self-defense, self preservation or plain logic, David had every reason to kill Saul.
He refused. Why?
Because God had made Saul King.
Now isn’t that something?
Saul staying alive meant David staying a fugitive.
Saul staying alive meant David couldn’t become King, and yet David said no, even when his right hand man was willing to kill Saul on David’s say so.
You would think that David’s magnanimity would change Saul’s attitude – and it did- at least for one day.
Even with the evidence that David meant him no harm, it wasn’t long before Saul got right back on the hunt.
Fool me once that’s on you. Fool me twice, that’s on me. A similar scenario happened two chapters later2 and this time scripture actually says God caused Saul and his men to sleep so they weren’t alerted to David’s presence.
In other words, David was presented with perfect conditions to remove his biggest problem…again.
Again he refused.
For David, killing Saul was never an issue of making himself more comfortable. What Rebecca did by swapping Esau for Jacob3, David refused to do even when presented with multiple chances.
Translation: David trusted God to get David to the throne without David’s help.
It would have been easy to assume the multiple coincidences meant David was being given a second chance to correct his mistake but he didn’t see it that way.
David did get to the throne when Saul ended his own life on the battlefield.
In our world, we would call David’s actions naïve, or downright foolish. In truth, David wasn’t being nice. He was being trusting of the God who he believed would deliver him – even though he didn’t know when or how.
We don’t get to face physical giants in our world, but we will have a chance to put our hands on something because we trust our efforts more than we trust the Lord’s. It is hard not to do what the culture dictates when our backs are against the wall, but God’s ways often don’t fall under the column of logic.
That after all, is faith.
Trusting God to take care of the things we can’t, because of our stance for him.
A man after my own heart.
Pretty lofty title for a man who was once in charge of sheep.
Who knows, a path you refuse to take, may cause God to give you an enviable title… and maybe even a throne.
1 – 1Sam 24 v 1-16
2- 1Sam 26 v 7-12
3- Gen 27 v 5-19
Have you ever been tempted to put your hands on something only God should?
Let me know. Comment below