I Samuel 29:6 Then Achish called David and said to him, “Surely, as the Lord lives, you have been upright, and your going out and your coming in with me in the army is good in my sight. For to this day I have not found evil in you since the day of your coming to me. Nevertheless the lords do not favor you.
After I became a Christian at 16, my life and my future changed. I knew God was calling me to be a band director. I had not considered that before! So I pre-pared. After four years of college and two more years of grad school, I was ready. I got my first job in a small school in northwest Indiana. After two years, the bands had doubled in size! Things were going in the right direction! Imagine my surprise then, when my principals met with me to tell me they “would no longer be needing my service”, that they “needed to make a change”!
Looking back on my life, I can see with the clarity that only comes from hindsight, how God was working in my life! How different my life might have been had I stayed there!
David had been on the run from Saul. He had been hounded and harried from place to place until he, in frustration, went the one place no one would expect: to the Philistines! He lived on the edges of their territory and enjoyed a measure of peace from Saul’s attempts on his life. But David was growing too comfortable there. He was successful in many endeavors and gained the respect of the leader of that area. At the beginning of chapter 29, the Philistines are massing for war and the Israelites are too. And who lines up with the Philistines? David! Nothing seems right about this. If David continued down this path, his future would have been nothing like we will read about in coming chapters. But David seems content to be where he is.
But the other Philistine rulers are not content. They don’t want David with them. They have a meeting and he is told “We no longer need your services.” “We’ve had to make a change.” “We think it’s better for the organization without you.” David gets fired! He hadn’t done anything wrong. But he was let go. What he couldn’t see until later was how God was at work! If David had fought with the Philistines on this occasion, he likely never would have become king of Israel! Not only would his life have been different, the world would have been different.
We don’t always know why things happen in our lives the way they do. But we can be confident that if we serve God, He is in control. Paul said it best in Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
God’s ways aren’t always easy, but they’re always good! It just might take a while to see.
Blessings,
Pastor Russ
