FORGIVING OUR GRIEF-GIVERS -- Part 3 of 3

Based on 1 Samuel 24.

David faced Saul the way he faced Goliath – by facing God more so.  When the soldiers in the cave urged David to kill Saul, look who occupied David’s thoughts:  “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord” (I Samuel 24:6).

When David called out to Saul from the mouth of the cave, “David stooped with his face to the earth, and bowed down” (24:8).  Then he reiterated his conviction:  “I will not stretch out my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord’s anointed” (24:10).

In the second scene, during the nighttime campsite attack, David maintained his belief:  “Who can stretch out his hand against the Lord’s anointed, and be guiltless?” (26:9).

In these two scenes I count six times when David called Saul “the Lord’s anointed.”  Can you think of another term David might have used?  Buzzkill and epoxy brain come to my mind.  But not to David’s.  He saw, not Saul the enemy, but Saul the anointed.  He refused to see his grief-giver as anything less than a child of God.  David didn’t applaud Saul’s behavior; he just acknowledged Saul’s proprietor – God.  David filtered his view of Saul through the grid of heaven.  The king still belonged to God, and that gave David hope.

-- Max Lucado in “Facing Your Giants”

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