"Snippets" from David
 

"Lord, You Would Not Ask Me to Do That -- Would You?"

It is easy to excel, but hard to decline! It is much easier to adjust to praise than to adjust to silence! Advancing is stimulating and challenging, frequently causing adrenalin to flow, but declining can be a painful, gut-wrenching challenge!

Try to picture David before King Saul’s jealousy and after King Saul’s jealousy. To help you draw your pictures, read again 1 Samuel 21:10-15.

Begin your drawings with the triumphant David. He was the teenager [likely] who dared fight and kill the giant Philistine, Goliath, while members of Israel’s army hid in fear. He was the youthful commander who inflicted heavy casualties on the dreaded Philistine army. He was the man who served Saul even when Saul tried to kill him. He was the man who killed 200 Philistine warriors in order to become the King’s son-in-law by marrying Michal [the King’s daughter]. He was the man responsible for more deaths among the enemy than was the King.

In all this, David was quite successful and much adored in Israel. The man was a popular success!

Then everything changed! In your second picture, account for his changes. The young man who was popular in Israel had to turn to the enemy for refuge. The popular man who rescued now fled. The man who often visited the King’s palace as the King’s friend now was the King’s enemy who (1) had to stay out of King Saul’s reach and (2) had to stay one step ahead of King Saul. The man who commanded men who protected “his back” was now all alone. The man who must have looked quite dashing at the height of his popularity now deliberately nurtured the public image of an insane man.

Would God let a man of faith and courage go from popularity and approval to a disheveled man hiding among the enemy as he drooled on his beard? God did! There is a vast difference in being a man who is popular for doing what is right, and being a man who trusts God, when doing right costs him. What a contrast in who David was and what David became!

The popular man became the disheveled man, and the disheveled man later became king. Which takes the greater faith—to be popular, to be disheveled, or to be king? Does one state require more faith than another, or do all require the same faith expressed in differing ways?

Dependence on God is dependence on God—no matter where one is. The temptation is to depend on self when we are popular and successful. The challenge is to know who we are no matter how popular and successful we are. Depend on God when you have much, and depend on God when you have nothing.

No matter where you are or what your needs are, depend on God. When things go great, depend on God. When things go awful, depend on God. No matter where you are, God is there. See Him, do not turn against Him.

Snippets, 8 March, 2007
David Chadwell
Fort Smith, AR