Rocks of the Wild Goats

In the Life journal today our reading was 1 Samuel 24. This chapter is another that shows me how weird the relational tension was between Saul and David. Saul screwed up and lost the Lord’s blessing a few chapters ago. God tells Samuel to find a new king and he anoints young David. Saul knows that David is going to be the next king and so literally begins to lose it. They each have something the other wants, Saul want the blessing back and David wants to be king, yet they go about reaching for it in different ways. Saul is trying to take what he thinks he deserves. He’s tried to kill David a few times and now he has David and his men on the run.

While Saul is looking for David in the Rocks of the Wild Goats Saul takes a pit stop in a cave. This just happens to be the same cave that David is hiding in. David’s men freak out. They keep telling him this is God’s will. Kill the king and take what you want. In v. 6 David responds like this, “So he said to his men, ‘Far be it from me because of the Lord that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord ’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, since he is the Lord ’s anointed.’” David tells his men he’s not going to reach out and take what God has promised to give him.

Have you ever tried to force the hand of God? This is one of the things Satan tempted Jesus with in the wilderness (or on top of the temple). Satan told him jump! you won’t get hurt, you’re God for your sake! Jesus’ response was the same as David’s, I’m not about to test God! If he says something than it is true.

The real issue here is a lack of faith. God makes his promises and the longest we can wait for stuff is till next Christmas. So we begin to manipulate the situation. Walk out on what we call “faith” but it’s really impatience. Imagine if Moses would’ve gone to free the Israelites before God’s time? He could’ve gone in there gun’s blazing with his father-in-law behind him but they would’ve gotten their tales handed to them by the pharaoh. What if Jesus would’ve gone to Jerusalem before his appointed time. He probably would’ve still been crucified but the symbolism of the Passover and all the other healing and teaching would’ve been non-existent.

God makes us amazing promises. Promises for relationships, for growth, for healing. What has God promised you that you are trying to take without his timing as your direction? Patience is a hard lesson for us to learn (just ask my 3 yr old). But if you manipulate or circumvent God and his timing you’ll lose the lessons, history and maybe even the blessing all together.

Created about 2 years ago