King David is one of my very favourite Bible characters (I can't wait to meet him in Heaven!) So it was a real personal delight studying the story of his life/his walk with God in the books of Samuel and Kings with Search the Scriptures.
1 Sam 26 was one of the incidences in which David spared Saul's life, even when seemingly against human logic. (I could almost see Abishai facepalming after 26:8.) Search the Scriptures asked: What basic convictions motivated David's actions? How did his faith in God's purposes for him stand out? In particular, what principle emerges from 25:39 and 26:10, 23? And my answers, eventually, were somewhere around this: David's actions were motivated by his convictions about God's purpose for him. He had faith that God's purpose for him would not require him to sin, or to behave in anyway that wasn't blameless (enough people would have justified David's killing of Saul to allow him to get away with it; yet, that wasn't the issue. Blamelessness before GOD--not man--was.) To anyone else, this seemed like a God-given chance to fulfill God's purpose for David (replacing Saul as king.) But David had faith. God would bring it to pass in His own time, in His own way. Meanwhile, David would be guided by God's statues: not to shed innocent blood; to respect authority; and to leave revenge of this sort to God. (Of course, David wasn't always such a good example. Sadly. Think the chapter before, when Abigail barely rescued him from doing the exact opposite of all these. It was probably that very experience, however, which sobered him and showed him he needed to think again on how he ought to live out God's purpose for his life.) Looking at David's life story from the big-picture lens of the future, we can see God's hand working out His purpose, leading David towards and through the mission of kingship. David, right in the middle of it, certainly couldn't have seen that--it was very much so a walk of faith. Imagine the seven years he reigned in Hebron, wondering if he would ever be the officially acknowledged king of Israel; let alone all the years of hardship, danger, and wandering before that as a wanted man. David couldn't possibly have seen God's purpose working out clearly in his life all the time. But while he waited, he learnt instead to focus on living out righteousness and faithfulness--to live blamelessly, and to live with faith. At crossroad phases in life, I have to struggle with this same issue. It is a good reminder that actually, our lives aren't so much 'living out God's plan for us'. God's plans will come to pass. He is a sovereign God; and at any rate as limited beings we could never 'know' what God plans for us to do here on earth (handy as that might be.) Don't be paralyzed by the thought that you somehow need to discover what God's plan for your life is before you can live it out. It's already happening; He is already guiding you along it; you are already living it out, so to speak. How then should we live? What are we guided by? The revealed will of God--His will for us to be blameless and faithful. Our focus is as simple as this: to live out righteousness and faithfulness.
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