Had he done it then

After I Samuel 24:1-12 

Had he done it then,

they would have known,

they would have grasped,

they would have accepted

and recognized and

applauded and even

cheered, celebrating

the death of a crazed

king who somehow

justified evil as good.

He could have done it then,

and the world would have

rejoiced. But he refrained;

his purpose was not

to please the world but

to please something else,

someone else.

 

Photograph by Chandan Chaurasia via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Part of a Christian’s Job is to Point Out That Modern Life Stinks – Samuel James at Digital Liberties.

 

Return to Chesterton – Maisie Ward at The Imaginative Conservative.

The First Sunday of Epiphany: Jesus' Baptism -- poem by Malcolm Guite.

Cutting corners

After I Samuel 24:1-12 

He could have had

it all, the kingdom,

the power, the glory,

respect, admiration.

He could have ended

the threat to his life,

the threat ongoing,

right there and

at that moment.

He could have made

a simple thrust, 

a surprise, and

they all knew

the king would do

that in his place.

Instead, he cut

a corner, a corner

of the robe, a cut

that said he could

have killed a king,

but refrained, that

said that, in God’s

time the piece,

the corner becomes

the whole.

 

Photograph by Erol Ahmed via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

A not so exhaustive list of male Christian fiction authors – Mark at Thoughts of a Sojourner.

 

Can you share a lesson from American church history? – Stephen Nichols at Ligonier Ministries.

 

“Mother of God,” poem by William Butler Yeats, and “Magnificat,” poem by Megan Willome – at Poetry for Life.

 

Attentive Parenting in the AI Age – Scott Hurst at Mere Orthodoxy.

A hiding place

After Psalm 32

Panting, the in the darkness

of the cave, escaping

from the mouths tearing

at my heels, falling

to my knees, a body,

a soul exhausted

Here is the hiding place,

here is the deliverance,

here is the cleft in the rock,

the place of safety,

the knowledge of security,

where the mouths do not bite,

the waters do not rise,

the foe does not consume,

and arms surround me

Photograph by Dmitry Ratushny via Unsplash. User with permission.

The mouth of a cave

The mouth of a cave

is the point at which

darkness and light meet,

contending, the darkness

behind, the light in front,

or the darkness in front if

the light is behind.

The choice is daily,

sometimes hourly.

Photograph by Junior Libby via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

David’s Cave

Three years ago, I did a study of the life of David in the Old Testament, one of the most remarkable characters in the entire Bible, and certainly one who is presented in all his human strength and frailty.

For that is what struck me about David – he is presented as fully human as it gets in the Bible – his faith, his joy, his fear, his depression, his royal countenance, his adultery, his murder of Uriah, his own family blowing up on him, and his near-loss of the throne. He becomes God’s anointed king of Israel, but his is a very human king, with very human (recognizably human) weaknesses.

Nowhere did I get greater insight into David’s mind and heart, “a man after God’s own heart,” than in the psalms he wrote. The non-fiction story is told in 1 Samuel; the more creative version is told in the psalms. To understand David, I had to read both the historical narrative and the poetry. Both were true; the psalms often emphatically so. To read “Davis was anguished” is one thing; it’s quite another to read a psalm like the twenty-third and experience the depth of that anguish and despair, and then the hope rising.

David experienced adulation and condemnation. He was acclaimed and disparaged. He was elevated to near-royal status and then hunted down by that same king to be killed.

Bob Sorge, in The Fire of Delayed Answers,  calls this David’s “cave experience.” Forced into living a wilderness experience, life for David became very daily, and perhaps very hourly. You don’t plan your future kingdom when you’re barely one step ahead of your own execution.

And then there was the loneliness. For a time David was by himself, holding on only to the memory of his friendship with Jonathan, cut off from family and friends. Even when the “600 warriors” found and joined him, he was still largely alone, Sorge says. Yes, he now had people to help but what they really wanted him to do was to strike Saul down – and they had little patience with David’s waiting on the Lord to act. Twice David deliberately did not take advantage of the opportunity to kill Saul. He wasn’t going to raise his sword against the Lord’s anointed, no matter how tempting, no matter how easy it would have been.

Instead, he would wait for God to act.

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading The Fire of Delayed Answers. To see more posts on this chapter, “David’s Cave,” please visit Jason at Connecting toImpact.

Photograph by Marina Shemesh via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.