David shows such respect for God and His will, whether or not it seems at the moment to be a good thing. He avoids, at every turn, taking the life of God's annointed King, Saul, even though he knows that Samuel has told him he will be the king. Both Saul and Jonathan have affirmed this. It would have been so easy to rationalize - he was the ordained king. And hadn't God put David in just the perfect situation to take Saul's life?
David also stops to ask God's guidence at every turn. Even when his wives are taken by the Amalekites. Prudence would have demanded that David move quickly and chase the Amalekite raiding party while there was still time. (Something about this reminds me of the story of Daniel Boone and last of the Mohicans. Those stories are certainly of this archetype.) Yet David takes the time to stop and ask God.
David is different than Saul. Saul suffers with impatience. He won't wait for the sacrifice to be made and makes it himself and this gets him in trouble early on. And, here again, he inquires of God and doesn't get an answer he turns to a medium to conjure up Samuel, a move that is so plainly against the law that Saul himself had set up that even the medium tells him its against the law.
Ironically, the medium he consults, through Samuel, will prophesy Saul's death. And so he dies and with him David's beloved friend Jonathan. David moves closer to becoming King in a moment of such incredible sorrow. He must have wondered for such a long time, for years, when his day would come and he would be king. Was the picture in his head anything like the reality? It seldom is. He becomes king but only after he looses a good friend.
Do we pray for things in our lives without ever contemplating the implications and the cost? Did David, in the middle of so much struggling and turmoil because of the leadership in Israel, ever pray for an uncontested kingdom. If so his prayer was answered, but not like he would have wanted it. His friend is dead. The person closest to him on this earth is gone.
My post last year on this date.
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