Into the wild

God always delivers on His promises

Once again the Bible shows how the stories of David and Saul are linked. Saul is in decline. The Lord has sent an evil spirit to torture him, but Saul's attendants have an idea.

They want to bring someone who can play the lyre (a cross between a harp and a guitar) to help soothe Saul. The king agrees, and guess who is summoned to his court: David.

The move works. Saul finds peace whenever David plays and chooses to make him one of his armor-bearers, a prestigious role for someone so young and especially for an unknown shepherd boy.

Seemingly overnight, the boy who went unnoticed now held the attention of the king. How could this happen?

God plays by His own set of rules. When He decides to promote someone, He doesn't need to follow the logical order. He places people where He desires and nothing on Earth can stop Him.

So much of what we will see in David's story doesn't make sense because it isn't supposed to. A God-driven life is supposed to be strange. It's supposed to break rules and upend the normal order.

God told David that he would one day be king. David could have resigned to follow the normal path to get there. Perhaps he would have joined the army and proved he was a skilled warrior until they eventually promoted him. Decades would have gone by and eventually, he would have had enough support to make a claim to the throne. Hopefully, by then, the king would have become unpopular or weak so that he could make his move.

But God circumvented all of that. He took the shepherd-boy and placed him directly in the king's court. As we will see, he continued to show David favor and fast-tracked his story.

When God calls us to something we have two choices. We can either look for a way to make it happen in the natural or we can go towards the calling with complete abandon, knowing that if God promised it – He will be the one to make it happen.

Prayer:
Father, help me not to choose the safe path. Instead, push me to truly step in faith towards what You have put on my heart. I will trust You and I believe that You will do the rest. I lay it all down into Your hands. Thank you for always being there. I love you.
In Jesus Name,
Amen.

Verse of the day:

1 Samuel 16:14-23 (NIV)
14 Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. 15 Saul's attendants said to him, "See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better." 17 So Saul said to his attendants, "Find someone who plays well and bring him to me."
18 One of the servants answered, "I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the Lord is with him." 19 Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, "Send me your son David, who is with the sheep." 20 So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them with his son David to Saul. 21 David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul liked him very much, and David became one of his armor-bearers. 22 Then Saul sent word to Jesse, saying, "Allow David to remain in my service, for I am pleased with him." 23 Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.