Today’s reading: 2 Samuel 23; Ephesians 6
This is not what I actually want to talk about today, but can I just start by saying how funny I think it is that David calls himself, “the sweet psalmist of Israel”? I feel like this would be like me going around introducing myself as, “Joe the Wise,” or, “Joseph the Mighty,” or something like that. Obviously, in David’s case, the title actually fits, but I still think it’s funny to imagine him sitting down to write and thinking, “How should I introduce myself here? Oh! I know! The sweet psalmist of Israel.”
Anyway, what I actually wanted to talk about today is how infectious David’s faith was in a really amazing way.
I have always loved this chapter because we are treated to the stories of the greatest feats of David’s mighty men, and they are amazing to try to imagine. A lone man standing against an entire army, or going against a seasoned warrior armed only with a stick and killing him with his own weapon, or killing a lion in a pit on a snowy day. These are amazing, bold, fearless feats. But one question I had never stopped to ask myself before today is, where were these men when Goliath was defying Israel?
When Saul has his army gathered for war against the Philistines and Goliath comes out to challenge Israel, everyone is terrified and nobody is willing to go out and fight him for more than a month of daily challenges (unrelated, but I just thought of this: Did they keep the Sabbath at the battlefront…?). But with so many bold and courageous warriors around, how did none of them step up to fight Goliath? I mean, if these guys are willing to stand alone against an entire army, surely fighting a single enemy champion would be small potatoes for them, right?
I don’t think the point of 2 Samuel 23 is that amazing warriors were just coming out of the woodwork to join David, but that David’s trust in the Lord was contagious and increasingly spread to these men who gathered around him.
If I’m being honest, I tend to have a picture of this being a pretty rough and faithless crowd of guys around David because when he first has to flee from Saul we are told that that was the kind of people who followed after him. But the reality is, even if these guys were pretty rough around the edges to start with, and even if they had little to no faith at the start, David is a prolific psalmist and clearly has God on the brain pretty much constantly. Every night as they were sitting around the fire in the camp with David they would have been listening to him workshopping psalms of praise to God. As they hung out with David in the wilderness they would have talked about God’s faithfulness and goodness. As they watched David pray before battles and be given battle plans like being told to wait in the forest until they hear the sound of marching in the trees and God’s army has gone before them, they would have experienced first-hand the Lord’s ability and desire to provide for them in battle, just like He did for David against Goliath.
The end result then is that even though, when Goliath challenged Israel, David was the lone man willing to step out in faith and fight the Lord’s battle, over years of watching that faith work itself out day in and day out, God brought a whole group of men to that same kind of active trust in Him.
It’s really encouraging to recognize how big of an impact one person’s faith can have.
When we step out in faith and trust the Lord to keep His promises, it is not only our own faith that is strengthened and encouraged, but the faith of everyone around us seeing God come through as well.
God, grow us into people of faith who can have the kind of influence, through our trust in you, that David had among his mighty men.
No comments:
Post a Comment