Do you remember the children’s activity of holding hands and together walking in a circle singing “Ring Around the Rosie” and at the end of the song, everyone would fall to the ground laughing?

As I read the saga of Saul’s hunting down David to kill him; I was reminded of this song.1 Samuel 23:26 describes the running in circles: “Saul was going along one side of the mountain, and David and his men were on the other side, hurrying to get away from Saul.” Had it not been for an invasion of the Philistines, Saul and his army would have been chasing David and his men around the mountain for an extended period of time.

But just as the children’s song and dance has a tragic ending about children getting the Black Plague, falling down and dying from the infectious itching sores; the account of Saul chasing David has a surprising ending. In a moment of vulnerability, Saul places himself as an easy target to be killed by David. But the surprise ending is that David spares Saul’s life swearing to God, he (David) will not take the life of God’s appointed king.

Later David actually bows before Saul declaring that what should be done with Saul rests in God’s hands, not David’s. 

What a great witness David becomes to Saul as an obedient servant of a Holy God. Truly David has become everything Saul has forsaken and becomes God’s perfect servant. Is it any wonder David is described as a man after God’s own heart?

We learn from this historic account that 1.) God is the ultimate authority over all things; 2.) Humility before the Lord is God’s expectation for each of us; 3.) God watches over and protects his own.

Yes, in the four chapters we read today, we gain both a message of hope and obedience while at the same time discover an account involving a life of tragedy, guilt, rejection and lost relationships. 

“But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).

David Blythe