Max Lucado (3 page)
And then there were the Philistines: a warring, bloodthirsty, giant-breeding people, who monopolized iron and blacksmithing. They were grizzlies; Hebrews were salmon. Philistines built cities; Hebrews huddled in tribes and tents. Philistines forged iron weapons; Hebrews fought with crude slings and arrows. Philistines thundered in flashing chariots; Israelites retaliated with farm tools and knives. Why, in one battle the entire Hebrew army owned only two swordsâone for Saul and one for his son Jonathan (1 Sam. 13:22).
Corruption from within. Danger from without. Saul was weak. The nation, weaker. What did God do? He did what no one imagined. He issued a surprise invitation to the nobody from Nowheresville.
He dispatched Samuel to Red Eye, Minnesota. Not really. He sent the priest to Sawgrass, Mississippi. No, not exactly. He gave Samuel a bus ticket to Muleshoe, Texas.
Okay, he didn't do that either. But he might as well have. The Bethlehem of Samuel's day equaled the Red Eye, Sawgrass, or Muleshoe of ours: a sleepy village that time had forgotten, nestled in the foothills some six miles south of Jerusalem. Bethlehem sat two thousand feet above the Mediterranean, looking down on gentle, green hills that flattened into gaunt, rugged pastureland. Ruth would know this hamlet. Jesus would issue his first cry beneath Bethlehem's sky.
But a thousand years before there will be a babe in a manger, Samuel enters the village, pulling a heifer. His arrival turns the heads of the citizens. Prophets don't visit Bethlehem. Has he come to chastise someone or hide somewhere? Neither, the stoop-shouldered priest assures. He has come to sacrifice the animal to God and invites the eld-ers and Jesse and his sons to join him.
The scene has a dog-show feel to it. Samuel examines the boys one at a time like canines on leashes, more than once ready to give the blue ribbon, but each time God stops him.
Eliab, the oldest, seems the logical choice. Envision him as the village Casanova: wavy haired, strong jawed. He wears tight jeans and has a piano-keyboard smile.
This is the guy,
Samuel thinks.
“Wrong,” God says.
Abinadab enters as brother and contestant number two. You'd think a
GQ
model had just walked in. Italian suit. Alligator-skin shoes. Jet-black, oiled-back hair. Want a classy king? Abinadab has the bling-bling.
God does not see the same way people see.
People look at the outside of a person, but the Lord looks
at the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)
NCV
God's not into classy. Samuel asks for brother number three, Shammah. He's bookish, studious. Could use a charisma transplant but busting with brains. Has a degree from State University and his eyes on a postgraduate program in Egypt. Jesse whispers to Samuel, “Valedictorian of Bethlehem High.”
Samuel is impressed, but God isn't. He reminds the priest, “God does not see the same way people see. People look at the outside of a person, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7 ncv).
Seven sons pass. Seven sons fail. The procession comes to a halt.
Samuel counts the siblings: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. “Jesse, don't you have eight sons?” A similar question caused Cinderella's stepmother to squirm. Jesse likely did the same. “I still have the youngest son. He is out taking care of the sheep” (16:11 ncv).
The Hebrew word for “youngest son” is
haqqaton.
It implies more than age; it suggests rank. The
haqqaton
was more than the youngest brother; he was the
little
brotherâthe runt, the hobbit, the “bay-ay-ay-bee.”
Sheep watching fits the family
haqqaton.
Put the boy where he can't cause trouble. Leave him with woolly heads and open skies.
And that's where we find David, in the pasture with the flock. Scripture dedicates sixty-six chapters to his story, more than anyone else in the Bible outside of Jesus. The New Testament mentions his name fifty-nine times. He will establish and inhabit the world's most famous city, Jerusalem. The Son of God will be called the Son of David. The greatest psalms will flow from his pen. We'll call him king, warrior, minstrel, and giant-killer. But today he's not even included in the family meeting; he's just a forgotten, uncredentialed kid, performing a menial task in a map-dot town.
What caused God to pick him? We want to know. We really want to know.
After all, we've walked David's pasture, the pasture of exclusion.
We are weary of society's surface-level system, of being graded according to the inches of our waist, the square footage of our house, the color of our skin, the make of our car, the label of our clothes, the size of our office, the presence of diplomas, the absence of pimples. Don't we weary of such games?
Hard work ignored. Devotion unrewarded. The boss chooses cleavage over character. The teacher picks pet students instead of prepared ones. Parents show off their favorite sons and leave their runts out in the field. Oh, the Goliath of exclusion.
Are you sick of him? Then it's time to quit staring at him. Who cares what he, or they, think? What matters is what your Maker thinks. “The Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the out-ward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (16:7).
Those words were written for the
haqqatons
of society, for misfits and outcasts. God uses them all.
Moses ran from justice, but God used him.
Jonah ran from God, but God used him.
Rahab ran a brothel, Samson ran to the wrong woman, Jacob ran in circles, Elijah ran into the mountains, Sarah ran out of hope, Lot ran with the wrong crowd, but God used them all.
And David? God saw a teenage boy serving him in the back-woods of Bethlehem, at the intersection of boredom and anonymity, and through the voice of a brother, God called, “David! Come in. Someone wants to see you.” Human eyes saw a gangly teenager enter the house, smelling like sheep and looking like he needed a bath. Yet, “the Lord said, âArise, anoint him; for this is the one!'” (16:12).
God saw what no one else saw: a God-seeking heart. David, for all his foibles, sought God like a lark seeks sunrise. He took after God's heart, because he stayed after God's heart. In the end, that's
God examines hearts.
When he finds one set on him, he calls it and claims it.
all God wanted or needed . . . wants or needs. Others measure your waist size or wallet. Not God. He examines hearts. When he finds one set on him, he calls it and claims it.
By the way, remember how I waited for the phone to ring that night? It never did. But the doorbell did.
Long after my hopes were gone and my glove was hung, the doorbell rang. It was the coach. He made it sound as if I were a top choice and he thought an assistant had phoned me. Only later did I learn the truth. I was the last pick. And, save a call from my dad, I might have been left off the team.
But Dad called, and the coach came, and I was glad to play.
The story of young David assures us of this: your Father knows your heart, and because he does, he has a place reserved just for you.
S
HARON CHECKS her rearview mirror . . . again. She studies the faces of other drivers . . . again. She keeps an eye out for him, S because she knows he'll come after her . . . again.
“Nothing will keep me from you” was the message Tony had left on her voice mail. “I'm your husband.”
Her ex-husband's paroxysms of anger and flying fists and her black eyes had led to divorce. Still he neglected warnings, ignored restraining orders, and scoffed at the law.
So Sharon checks the rearview mirror . . . again.
Down the road, around the corner, an office worker named Adam does some checking of his own. He peeks in the door of his boss's office, sees the empty chair, and sighs with relief. With any luck, he'll have an hour, maybe two, before the Scrooge of the dot-com world appears in his doorway, likely hungover, angry, and disoriented.
Scrooge Jr. inherited the company from Scrooge Sr. Running the business frustrates Junior. He reroutes his stress toward the employees he needs the most. Such as Adam. Junior rants and raves, gives tongue-lashings daily, and compliments with the frequency of Halley's comet.
Sharon ducks her ex, Adam avoids his boss, and you? What ogres roam your world?
Controlling moms. Coaches from the school of Stalin. The pit-bull math teacher. The self-appointed cubicle commandant. The king who resolves to spear the shepherd boy to the wall.
That last one comes after David. Poor David. The Valley of Elah proved to be boot camp for the king's court. When Goliath lost his head, the Hebrews made David their hero. People threw him a ticker-tape parade and sang, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands” (1 Sam. 18:7).
Saul explodes like the Vesuvius he is. Saul eyes David “from that day forward” (18:9). The king is already a troubled soul, prone to angry eruptions, mad enough to eat bees. David's popularity splashes gasoline on Saul's temper. “I will pin David to the wall!” (18:11).
Saul tries to kill Bethlehem's golden boy six different times. First, he invites David to marry his daughter Michal. Seems like a kind gesture, until you read the crude dowry Saul required. One hundred Philistine foreskins.
Surely one of the Philistines will kill David,
Saul hopes. They don't. David doubles the demand and returns with the proof (18:25â27).
Saul doesn't give up. He orders his servants and Jonathan to kill David, but they refuse (19:1). He tries with the spear another time but misses (19:10). Saul sends messengers to David's house to kill him, but his wife, Michal, lowers him through a window. David the roadrunner stays a step ahead of Saul the coyote.
Saul's anger puzzles David. What has he done but good? He has brought musical healing to Saul's tortured spirit, hope to the enfeebled nation. He is the Abraham Lincoln of the Hebrew calamity, saving the republic and doing so modestly and honestly. He behaves “wisely in all his ways” (18:14). “All Israel and Judah loved David” (18:16). David behaves “more wisely than all the servants of Saul, so that his name became highly esteemed” (18:30).
Yet, Mount Saul keeps erupting, rewarding David's deeds with flying spears and murder plots. We understand David's question to Jonathan: “What have I done? What is my iniquity, and what is my sin before your father, that he seeks my life?” (20:1).
Jonathan has no answer to give, for no answer exists. Who can justify the rage of a Saul?
Who knows why a father torments a child, a wife belittles her husband, a boss pits employees against each other? But they do. Sauls still rage on our planet. Dictators torture, employers seduce, ministers abuse, priests molest, the strong and mighty control and cajole the vulnerable and innocent. Sauls still stalk Davids.
How does God respond in such cases? Nuke the nemesis? We may want him to. He's been known to extract a few Herods and Pharaohs. How he will treat yours, I can't say. But how he will treat you, I can. He will send you a Jonathan.
God counters Saul's cruelty with Jonathan's loyalty. Jonathan could have been as jealous as Saul. As Saul's son, he stood to inherit the throne. A noble soldier himself, he was fighting Philistines while David was still feeding sheep.
Jonathan had reason to despise David, but he didn't. He was gracious. Gracious because the hand of the Master Weaver took his and
The hand of the Master Weaver took Jonathan's
and David's hearts and stitched a seam between them.
David's hearts and stitched a seam between them. “The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul” (18:1).
As if the two hearts were two fabrics, God “needle and threaded” them together. So interwoven that when one moved, the other felt it. When one was stretched, the other knew it.
On the very day David defeats Goliath, Jonathan pledges his loyalty.
Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan took off the robe that was on him and gave it to David, with his armor, even to his sword and his bow and his belt. (18:3â4)
Jonathan replaces David's bucolic garment with his own purple robe: the robe of a prince. He presents his own sword to David. He effectively crowns young David. The heir to the throne surrenders his throne.
And, then, he protects David. When Jonathan hears the plots of Saul, he informs his new friend. When Saul comes after David, Jonathan hides him. He commonly issues warnings like this one: “My father Saul seeks to kill you. Therefore please be on your guard until morning, and stay in a secret place and hide” (19:2).
Jonathan gives David a promise, a wardrobe, and protection. “There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Prov. 18:24). David found such a friend in the son of Saul.
Oh, to have a friend like Jonathan. A soul mate who protects you, who seeks nothing but your interests, wants nothing but your happiness. An ally who lets you be you. You feel safe with that person. No need to weigh thoughts or measure words. You know his or her faithful hand will sift the chaff from the grain, keep what matters, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.
1
God gave David such a friend.
He gave you one as well. David found a companion in a prince of Israel; you can find a friend in the King of Israel, Jesus Christ. Has he
David found a companion in a prince of Israel;
you can find a friend in the King of Israel, Jesus Christ.
not made a covenant with you? Among his final words were these: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).
Has he not clothed you? He offers you “white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed” (Rev. 3:18). Christ cloaks you with clothing suitable for heaven.
In fact, he outdoes Jonathan. He not only gives you his robe; he dons your rags. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21 NIV).
