Slumps

Slumps

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me — watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matt. 11:28-30)

Your Goliath owns a weapon. It doesn’t fire bullets; it fires sadness, instead. It doesn’t take lives; it takes smiles. It doesn’t inflict flesh wounds; it inflicts faith wounds. Ever been hit? If you can’t find your rhythm, you have. If you can’t seem to get to first base, or even get out of bed for that matter, you have. Every step forward gets lost in two steps backward. Relationships sour. Skies darken. Your nights defy the sunrise. You’ve been hit. It’s like your problems are the Sioux, and you’re feeling a lot like Custer – on your last stand.

David feels like it’s his. Saul has been getting the best of David, leaving him sleeping in caves and lurking behind trees. Six hundred soldiers depend on David for leadership and provision, and these six hundred men have wives and children. David has two wives of his own which probably guarantees a little tension in his tent, too. Running from a crazed king. Hiding in hills. Leading a ragtag group of soldiers. Feeding more than a thousand mouths. And the enemy’s weapon has found its mark. Listen to David: “David thought to himself, ‘Sooner or later, Saul’s going to get me. The best thing I can do is escape to Philistine country. Saul will count me a lost cause and quit hunting me down in every nook and cranny of Israel. I’ll be out of his reach for good.’” (1 Sam. 27:1) No hope and, most of all, no God. David focuses on Saul. He hangs Saul’s poster on his wall, replays his voicemail messages and re-reads his texts. David immerses himself in his fear until his fear takes over: “I will be destroyed.”

He knows better, however, because in brighter seasons and healthier moments, David modeled heaven’s therapy for tough days. The first time he faced the Philistines in the wilderness, “David inquired of the Lord.” (23:2) When he felt small against his enemy, “David inquired of the Lord.” (23:4) When attacked by the Amalekites, “David inquired of the Lord.” (30:8) Puzzled about what to do after the death of Saul, “David inquired of the Lord.” (2 Sam. 2:1) When crowned as king and pursued by the Philistines, “David inquired of the Lord.” (5:19) David defeated them, yet they mounted another attack, so “David inquired of the Lord.” (5:23) In other words, David kept God’s number on speed dial. Confused? David talked to God. Challenged? He talked to God. Afraid? He talked to God . . . most of the time. But not this time.

On this occasion, David talks to himself. He doesn’t even seek the counsel of his advisers. When Saul first lashed out, David turned to Samuel. As the attacks continued, David asked Jonathan for advice. When weaponless and breadless, he took refuge among the priests at Nob. In this case, however, David consults David. Poor choice. Look at the advice he gives himself: “Sooner or later, Saul is going to get me.” (1 Sam. 27:1)

No he won’t, David. Don’t you remember the golden oil of Samuel on your face? God has anointed you. Don’t you remember God’s promise through Jonathan? “You shall be king over Israel.” (23:17) Have you forgotten the assurance God gave you through Abigail? “The Lord will keep all his promises of good things for you. He will make you leader over Israel.” (25:30) God even assured your safety through Saul himself: “I know indeed that you shall surely be king.” (24:20)

But in a wave of weariness, David hits the pause button on good thoughts and thinks, “Sooner or later, Saul’s going to get me. The best thing I can do is escape to Philistine country. Saul will count me a lost cause and quit hunting me down in every nook and cranny of Israel. I’ll be out of his reach for good.” (27:1) So David leaves, and Saul calls off the hunt. David defects into the hands of the enemy. He leads his men into the land of idols and false gods and pitches his tent in Goliath’s backyard. He plops down in the pasture of Satan himself.

Initially, David feels relief. Saul gives up the chase. David’s men can sleep with both eyes closed. Children can attend kindergarten, and wives can unpack the suitcases. Hiding out with the enemy brings temporary relief. But doesn’t it usually? Stop resisting drugs, and you’ll laugh — for a while. Move out on your spouse, and you’ll relax — for a time. Indulge in porn, and you’ll be entertained — for a season. But then the talons of temptation sink in. Waves of guilt crash in. The loneliness of breaking up rushes in. “There’s a way of life that looks harmless enough; look again — it leads straight to hell. Sure, those people appear to be having a good time, but all that laughter will end in heartbreak.” (Prov. 14:12–13)

Listen to the third stanza of David’s song of the slump. In verse one, “he wore out.” So, “he got out.” And in order to survive in the enemy camp, David “sells out.” He strikes a deal with Achish, the king of Gath: “Give me a place in one of the cities in the country, that I may live there; for why should your servant live in the royal city with you?” (1 Sam. 27:5) Note David’s self-assigned title: the “servant” of the enemy king. The once-proud son of Israel and conqueror of Goliath lifts a toast to the arch-enemy of his family. And Achish welcomes the deal. He grants David a village, Ziklag, and asks only that David turn against his own people and kill them. And, as far as Achish knows, David does. But David actually raids the enemies of the Hebrews: “Now David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites and the Amalekites. . . . Whenever David attacked an area, he did not leave a man or woman alive, but took sheep and cattle, donkeys and camels, and clothes. Then he returned to Achish.” (27:8–9)

Not David’s finest hour, to say the least. He lies to the Philistine king and covers up his deceit with bloodshed. He continues this duplicity for sixteen months. Not surprisingly, there are no psalms from this particular season of David’s life. His harp hangs silent. The slump mutes the minstrel. And things get worse before they get better.

The Philistines decide to attack King Saul. David and his men opt to switch sides and join the opposition. Envision U.S. armed forces joining with the Jihadists. They journey three days to the battlefield, get rejected, and travel three days home. “The Philistine officers said, . . . ‘He’s not going into battle with us. He’d switch sides in the middle of the fight!’” (1 Sam. 29:4)

So, David leads his unwanted men back to Ziklag, only to find the village burned to the ground. The Amalekites had destroyed it while they were away, and had kidnapped all of their wives, sons and daughters. When David and his men see the devastation, they weep and weep until they are “exhausted with weeping.” (30:4) Rejected by the Philistines. Pillaged by the Amalekites. No country to fight for. No family to come home to. Can matters grow worse? Yes, they can.

Anger flares in the soldiers’ eyes. David’s men start looking for rocks. “The people in their bitterness said he should be stoned.” (30:6) We have to wonder at this point whether David is regretting his decision? Longing for simpler days in the wilderness? The good ol’ cave days? No Philistine rejection or Amalekite attacks there. His men loved him. His wives were with him. Now, in the ruins of Ziklag with men picking stones to throw at him, does he regret his prayerless choice to get out and sell out? You be the judge.

Slumps. They’re the petri dish for bad decisions, the incubator for wrong turns, the assembly line of regretful moves. How we handle our tough times stays with us for a long time. So, how do you handle yours? When hope takes the last train and joy is nothing but the name of the little girl who used to live next door . . . when you are tired of trying, tired of forgiving, tired of hard weeks or hard-headed people . . . how do you manage your dark days? With a bottle of pills or scotch? With an hour at the bar, a day at the spa, or a week at the coast?

Many opt for such treatments. So many, in fact, that we assume they re-energize a sad life. But do they? No one denies that they help for a while, but over the long haul? They numb the pain, but do they remove it? Or, are we like the sheep on the Turkish cliff? Who knows why the first one jumped over the edge. Even more bizarre are the fifteen hundred others who followed, each leaping off the same overhang. The first 450 animals died. The thousand that followed survived only because the pile of corpses cushioned their fall.

We, like sheep, follow each other over the edge, falling headlong into bars and binges and beds. Like David, we crash into Gath, only to find that Gath has no solution. Is there a solution? Indeed there is. Doing right what David did wrong. He failed to pray.

Do the opposite: be quick to pray. Stop talking to yourself, and talk to Christ, instead. He’s the one who invites: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest.” (Matt. 11:28)

God, who is never downcast, never tires of your down days. David neglected good advice. So, learn from his mistake. Next time you lack the will to go on, seek healthy counsel. You won’t want to, of course. Slumping people love slumping people. Hurting people hang with hurting people. We love those with whom we can commiserate, and avoid those who correct. Yet correction and direction are what we need. “Refuse good advice and watch your plans fail; take good counsel and watch them succeed.” (Prov. 15:22) Be quick to pray, seek healthy counsel, and don’t give up.

Don’t make the mistake of Florence Chadwick. In 1952 she attempted to swim the chilly ocean waters between Catalina Island and the California shore; a distance of some 32 miles. She swam through foggy weather and choppy seas for fifteen hours. Her muscles began to cramp, and her resolve had weakened. She begged to be taken out of the water. But her mother, riding in a boat alongside, urged her not to give up. Florence kept trying but grew exhausted and eventually stopped swimming.

Aids lifted her out of the water and into the boat. They paddled a few more minutes, the mist broke, and Florence discovered that the shore was less than a half mile away. “All I could see was the fog,” she explained at a news conference. “I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it.”

Take a long look at the shore that awaits you. Don’t be fooled by the fog of the slump. The finish may be only strokes away. God may be, at this very moment, lifting his hand to signal Gabriel to grab the trumpet. Angels may be assembling, saints gathering, demons trembling. Stay at it. Stay in the water. Stay in the race. Stay in the fight. Give grace – one more time. Be generous – one more time. Teach one more class, encourage one more soul, swim one more stroke.

David did. Right there in the smoldering ruins of Ziklag, he found strength. After sixteen months in Gath. After the Philistine rejection, the Amalekite attack, and the insurrection by his men, he remembered what to do. “David found strength in the Lord his God.” (1 Sam. 30:6)

Where’s yours?

Grace,

Randy

Abigail

Abigail

 My dear friends, we must love each other. Love comes from God, and when we love each other, it shows that we have been given new life. We are now God’s children, and we know him. God is love, and anyone who doesn’t love others has never known him. God showed his love for us when he sent his only Son into the world to give us life. Real love isn’t our love for God, but his love for us. God sent his Son to be the sacrifice by which our sins are forgiven. Dear friends, since God loved us this much, we must love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is truly in our hearts. (1 John 4:7-12)

Ernest Gordon groaned in the Death House of Chungkai, Burma. He listened to the moans of the dying, and smelled the stench of the dead. Unrelenting jungle heat baked his skin and parched his throat. If he had had the strength, he could have wrapped one hand around his bony thigh. But he had neither the energy nor the interest. Diphtheria had drained him of both. He couldn’t walk. He couldn’t even feel his body. He shared a cot with flies and bedbugs, and awaited a lonely death in a Japanese POW camp.

The war had been harsh on him, to say the least. He’d entered World War II in his early twenties, a robust Highlander in Scotland’s Argyle and Sutherland Brigade. But then came the capture by the Japanese, months of backbreaking labor in the jungle, daily beatings, and slow starvation. Scotland was just a dim memory. And civility? Even dimmer. The Allied soldiers behaved like barbarians – stealing from each other, robbing dying colleagues and fighting for food scraps. Servers shortchanged rations so they could have extra for themselves. The law of the jungle had become the law of the camp. And Gordon was happy to bid it adieu. Death by disease trumped life in Chungkai. But then something wonderful happened.

Two new prisoners were transferred to the camp. Though they were also sick and frail, they heeded a higher code. They shared their meager meals with the other prisoners, and volunteered for extra work. They cleaned Gordon’s ulcerated sores and massaged his atrophied legs. They gave him his first bath in six weeks. His strength slowly returned and, with it, his dignity. And their goodness proved contagious because Gordon contracted their “disease.” He began to treat the sick and share his rations, too. He even gave away what was left of his few belongings. Other soldiers had done likewise. Over time, the tone of the entire camp softened and brightened. Sacrifice replaced selfishness. Soldiers held worship services and Bible studies.

Twenty years later, when Gordon served as chaplain of Princeton University, he described the transformation with these words: Death was still with us — no doubt about that. But we were slowly being freed from its destructive grip. . . .Selfishness, hatred . . . and pride were all anti-life. Love, . . . self-sacrifice . . . and faith, on the other hand, were the essence of life . . . gifts of God to men. . . . Death no longer had the last word at Chungkai.

Selfishness, hatred, and pride — you don’t have to go to a POW camp to find any one of them. A dormitory will do just fine. As will the Board room of a corporation, or the bedroom of a marriage, or the backwoods of a county. The code of the jungle is alive and well. Every man for himself; get all you can, and can all you get; survival of the fittest.

Does that kind of code contaminate your world? Do personal possessive pronouns dominate the language of your circle? My career, My dreams, My stuff. I want things to go My way on My schedule. If so, you know how savage that monster can be. Yet, every so often, a diamond glitters in the rough. A comrade shares. A soldier cares. Or, an Abigail stands in the middle of your trail.

She lived in the days of David and was married to Nabal, whose name means “fool” in Hebrew. He lived up to the definition. Think of him as sort of the Saddam Hussein of the territory. He owned cattle and sheep and took pride in both. He kept his liquor cabinet full, his date life hot, and motored around in a stretch limo. His Lakers seats were front row, his jet was Lear, and he was prone to hop over to Vegas for a weekend of Texas Hold ’em. Half a dozen linebacker-sized security guards followed him wherever he went. And Nabal needed the protection.

He was “churlish and ill-behaved — a real Calebbite dog. . . . He is so ill-natured that one cannot speak to him.” (1 Sam. 25:3,17) He learned people skills at the local zoo. He never met a person he couldn’t anger or offend, or a relationship he couldn’t ruin. Nabal’s world revolved around only one person — Nabal. He owed nothing to anybody, and laughed at the thought of sharing with anyone. Especially with the likes of David.

In those days, David was like the Robin Hood of the wilderness. He and his 600 soldiers protected the farmers and shepherds from thieves. Israel had no CHP or police force, so David and his men met a definite need in the countryside. In fact, they guarded so effectively it prompted one of Nabal’s shepherds to say, “Night and day they were a wall around us all the time we were herding our sheep near them.” (25:16) But David and Nabal co-habited the territory with the harmony of two bulls in the same pasture. Both strong, and stronger-headed. It was just a matter of time before they’d collide.

Trouble began to brew just after the harvest. With the sheep sheared and the hay gathered, it was time to bake bread, roast lamb and pour wine. You know: take a break from the furrows and flocks and enjoy the fruit of their labor. And as we pick up the story, Nabal’s men are doing just that. David hears about the party and thinks his men deserve an invitation, too. After all, they’ve protected the man’s crops and sheep, patrolled the hills and secured the valleys. They deserve a bit of the bounty. So, David sends ten men to Nabal with this request: “We come at a happy time, so be kind to my young men. Please give anything you can find for them and for your son David.” (25:8)

Nabal, however, laughs at the thought: “Who is David, and who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants nowadays who break away each one from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men when I do not know where they are from?” (25:10–11) In other words, Nabal pretends he’s never heard of David, lumping him in with runaway slaves and gypsies. Well, Nabal’s insolence infuriates the messengers and they turn on their heels and hurry back to David to give him a complete report.

David doesn’t need to hear the report twice. He tells the men to form a posse. Or, more precisely, “Strap on your swords!” (1 Sam. 25:12) So, four hundred men mount up and take off. Eyes glare. Nostrils flare. Lips snarl. Testosterone flows. David and his troops thunder down on Nabal – who’s obliviously swilling beer and eating barbecue with his buddies. The road rumbles as David grumbles, “May God do his worst to me if Nabal and every cur in his misbegotten brood aren’t dead meat by morning!” (25:22). In other words, it’s the Wild West in the Ancient East.

Then, all of a sudden, beauty appears. It’s as if a daisy had lifted her head in the desert, or a whiff of perfume had floated through the men’s locker room. Abigail, the wife of Nabal, stands in the middle of the trail. Whereas Nabal’s brutish and mean, she’s “intelligent and good-looking.” (25:3) Brains and beauty. And Abigail puts both to work. When she learns of Nabal’s crude response, she springs into action. And with not a word to her husband, she gathers a bunch of gifts and races to intercept David. And as David and his men descend a ravine, she takes her position armed with “two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep dressed out and ready for cooking, a bushel of roasted grain, a hundred raisin cakes, and two hundred fig cakes, . . . all loaded on some donkeys.” (25:18)

Four hundred men rein in their rides. Some gape at the food, while others check out the chick. She’s good looking and a good cook – a combination that would stop any army. And Abigail’s no fool. She knows the importance of the moment. She stands as the final barrier between her family and certain death. Falling at David’s feet, she issues a plea worthy of a paragraph in Scripture. “On me, my lord, on me let this iniquity be! And please let your maidservant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your maid-servant.” (25:24)

She doesn’t defend Nabal; she agrees that he’s a scoundrel. She doesn’t beg for justice. She begs for forgiveness instead, accepting blame when she deserves none. “Please forgive the trespass of your maidservant.” (25:28) She offers the gifts from her house, and urges David to leave Nabal to God and avoid the dead weight of remorse. Her words fall on David like a hot August sun on ice. David melts. “Blessed be God, the God of Israel. He sent you to meet me! . That was a close call! . . . If you had not come as quickly as you did, stopping me in my tracks, by morning there would have been nothing left of Nabal but dead meat. . . . I’ve heard what you’ve said and I’ll do what you’ve asked.” (25:32–35)

So, David returns to camp with the food, and Abigail returns to Nabal. She finds him too drunk for conversation, so she waits until the next morning to describe how close David came to camp, and how close Nabal came to death. “Right then and there he had a heart attack and fell into a coma. About ten days later God finished him off and he died.” (25:37–38) When David learns of Nabal’s death and Abigail’s sudden availability, he thanks God for the first and takes advantage of the second. Unable to shake the memory of the pretty woman in the middle of the road, he proposes, and she accepts. David gets a new wife, Abigail gets a new life, and we have a great principle: beauty can overcome barbarism.

Meekness saved the day that day. Abigail’s gentleness reversed a river of anger. Humility has such power. Apologies can disarm arguments. Contrition can defuse rage. Olive branches do more good than battle-axes ever will. “Soft speech can crush strong opposition.” (Prov. 25:15)

Abigail teaches us a lot – the contagious power of kindness; the strength of a gentle heart. Her greatest lesson, however, is to take our eyes from her beauty and set them on someone else’s. She lifts our thoughts from a rural trail to a Jerusalem cross. Abigail never knew Jesus. She lived a thousand years before his sacrifice. Nevertheless, her story prefigures his life because Abigail placed herself between David and Nabal, just as Jesus placed himself between God and us. Abigail volunteered to be punished for Nabal’s sins just as Jesus allowed heaven to punish him for yours and mine. Abigail turned away the anger of David. Christ shielded you from God’s. He was our “Mediator who can reconcile God and people. He is the man Christ Jesus. He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone.” (1 Tim. 2:5–6) A mediator is one who stands in between. And Christ stood in between God’s anger and our punishment. In other words, Christ intercepted the wrath of heaven that was aimed at our sin.

Something remotely similar happened at the Chungkai camp. One evening after a work detail, a Japanese guard announced that a shovel was missing. The officer kept the Allies in formation, insisting that someone had stolen it. Screaming in broken English, he demanded that the guilty man step forward. He shouldered his rifle, ready to kill one prisoner at a time until a confession was made. A Scottish soldier broke ranks, stood stiffly at attention, and said, “I did it.” With that admission, the officer unleashed his anger and beat the man to death. When the guard was finally exhausted, the prisoners picked up the man’s body and their tools and returned to camp. Only then were the shovels counted again. The Japanese soldier had made a mistake. A shovel wasn’t missing after all. So, who does that kind of thing? What kind of person would take the blame for something he didn’t do? When you find the adjective, attach it to Jesus.

“God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him.” (Isa. 53:6) God treated his innocent Son like the guilty human race, his Holy One like a lying scoundrel, his Abigail like a Nabal. Christ lived the life we could not live, and took the punishment we could not take to offer the hope we cannot resist. And his sacrifice begs this question: If he so loved us, can’t we love each other? Having been forgiven, can’t we forgive? Having feasted at the table of grace, can’t we share a few of the crumbs? “My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other.” (1 John 4:11)

Do you find your Nabal-world hard to stomach? Then do what David did: stop staring at your Nabal and shift your gaze to Christ. Look more at the Mediator and less at the troublemakers. “Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.” (Rom. 12:21)

One prisoner can change a camp. And one Abigail can save a family. So, be the beauty amidst your beasts and see what happens.

Grace,

Randy

Issumagijoujungnainermik

Issumagijoujungnainermik

Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody. Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.” Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good. (Romans 12:14-21)

The most sacred symbol in Oklahoma City is a tree: a sprawling, shade-bearing, 80-year-old American Elm. Tourists drive from miles around to see it. People pose for pictures beneath it. Arborists carefully nurture and protect it. The tree adorns posters and letterhead, alike. Other trees in the area grow larger, fuller, even greener. But not one of them is as equally cherished. The city treasures the tree – not for its appearance, but for its endurance. The tree endured the Oklahoma City bombing.

Timothy McVeigh parked his death-laden truck only yards from that tree. His malice killed 168 people, wounded 850, destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, and buried the tree in rubble. No one expected the tree to survive. Fact is, no one even gave any thought to the dusty, branch-stripped tree. But then it began to bud. Sprouts pressed through damaged bark; green leaves pushed away gray soot. Life resurrected from an acre of death. And people noticed. The tree modeled the resilience that the victims desired. So they gave the elm a name: the Survivor Tree.

Truth is, the Timothy McVeigh’s of this world still rock us. They inexcusably and inexplicably maim and scar us. And we want to imitate the tree — survive the evil, and rise above the ruin. But how? David can give us some ideas.

When Saul “McVeighed” his way into David’s world, David dashed into the desert, where he found refuge among the caves near the Dead Sea. Several hundred loyalists followed him. So did Saul. And in two dramatic desert scenes, David models how to give grace to the person who gives grief.

Scene One. Saul signals for his men to stop. They do. Three thousand soldiers cease their marching as their king dismounts and walks up the mountainside. The region of Ein Gedi simmers in the brick-oven heat. Sunrays strike like daggers on the soldiers’ necks. Lizards lie behind rocks. Scorpions linger in the dirt. And snakes, like Saul, seek rest in caves. So, Saul enters the cave “to relieve himself. Now David and his men were hiding far back in the cave.” (1 Sam. 24:3) With eyes likely dulled from the desert sun, the king fails to notice the silent figures who’re lining the walls. But they see him.

As Saul heeds nature’s call, dozens of eyes widen. Their minds race, and hands reach for daggers. One thrust of a blade would bring Saul’s tyranny and their running to an end. But David signals for his men to hold back. He edges along the wall, unsheathes his knife, and cuts not the flesh but the robe of the king. David then creeps back into the recesses of the cave.

David’s men can’t believe what their leader has done. Neither can David. But his feelings are just the opposite of his men. They think he’s done too little; he thinks he’s done too much. Rather than gloat, he regrets. Later, David felt guilty because he’d cut off a corner of Saul’s robe. He said to his men, “May the Lord keep me from doing such a thing to my master! Saul is the Lord’s appointed king. I should not do anything against him, because he is the Lord’s appointed king!” (1 Sam. 24:5–6)  Saul exits the cave, and David soon follows. He lifts the garment corner and, in so many words, shouts, “I could have killed you, but I didn’t.” Saul looks up, stunned, and wonders aloud, “If a man finds his enemy, will he let him get away safely?” (24:19) David will. More than once.

Scene Two. Just a couple of chapters later, Saul, once again, is hunting David. David, once again, outwits Saul. While the camp of the king sleeps, daredevil David and a soldier stealth their way through the ranks until they stand directly over the snoring body of the king. The soldier begs, “This is the moment! God has put your enemy in your grasp. Let me nail him to the ground with his spear. One hit will do it, believe me; I won’t need a second!” (26:8)

But David won’t have it. Rather than take Saul’s life, he takes Saul’s spear and water jug and sneaks out of the camp. And then, from a safe distance, he awakens Saul and the soldiers with an announcement: “God put your life in my hands today, but I wasn’t willing to lift a finger against God’s anointed.” (26:23) Once again, David spares Saul’s life. Once again, David displays a God-saturated mind. Who dominates David’s thoughts? “May the Lord . . . the Lord delivered . . . the Lord’s anointed . . . in the eyes of the Lord.” (26:23–24; emphasis added)

We think about the purveyors of pain in our own lives. It’s one thing to give grace to friends, but to give grace to those who give us grief? Can you? Given a few uninterrupted moments with the Darth Vader of your days, could you imitate David? Maybe. Some people just seem graced with mercy glands. They secrete forgiveness, never harboring grudges or reciting their hurts. Others of us, maybe most of us, find it hard to forgive our Saul’s. We forgive the one-time offenders, mind you. We dismiss the parking-place takers, the date-breakers, and even the purse snatchers. We can move past the misdemeanors, but the felonies? The repeat offenders? The Saul’s who take our youth, our retirement, or our health? Were that scoundrel to seek shade in your cave or lie sleeping at your feet, would you do what David did? Could you forgive that scum who hurt you? The problem is that failure to forgive could be fatal: “Resentment kills a fool, and envy slays the simple.” ( Job 5:2)

Vengeance fixes your attention on life’s ugliest moments. Score-settling freezes your stare at the cruel events of your past. But is that where you want to look? Will rehearsing and reliving your hurts make you a better person? No. It will destroy you. Don’t think so? Well, do you remember that old comedy routine where Joe complains to Jerry about the irritating habit of a mutual friend – the guy pokes his finger in Joe’s chest as he talks. It drives Joe crazy. So he resolves to get even. He shows Jerry a small bottle of highly explosive nitroglycerin tied to a string. He explains, “I’m going to wear this around my neck, letting the bottle hang over the exact spot where I keep getting poked. Next time he sticks his finger in my chest, he’ll pay for it.” Not nearly as much as Joe will.

Enemy destroyers need two graves. “It is foolish to harbor a grudge.” (Eccles. 7:9) An eye for an eye becomes a neck for a neck, or a job for a job, or a reputation for a reputation. When does it stop? It stops when one person imitates David’s God-dominated mind. He faced Saul the way he faced Goliath — by facing God even more. 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.” (1 Sam. 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) And 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 there’s six separate times when David called Saul “the Lord’s anointed.” Can you think of another term David might have used? Yeah, me too. But not David. 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 reason for hope.

Many years ago a German shepherd/wolf mix attacked my youngest son on his way to elementary school. The worthless animal, completely unprovoked, climbed out of its run and onto the sidewalk and nearly killed him. The dog left my son with dozens of cuts and gashes, all of which required stitches whose number I can’t remember. My feelings toward that cur were less than Davidic. Leave the two of us in a cave, and only one would have exited – and it wouldn’t have been that dog. In fact, I told the humane society to put the dog down, because this wasn’t the first bite. But I was asked to reconsider. “What that dog did was horrible, but the owner’s still training him. They’re not finished with him yet.” Well, I was.

God would say the same about that shepherd/wolf mix who attacked you. “What he did was unthinkable, unacceptable, inexcusable, but I’m not finished yet.” Your enemies still figure into God’s plan. Their pulse is proof: God hasn’t given up on them. They may be out of God’s will, but not out of his reach. You honor God when you see them, not as his failures, but as his projects. Besides, who assigned us the task of getting even? David understood that. From the mouth of the cave, he declared, “May the Lord decide between you and me. May the Lord take revenge on you for what you did to me. However, I will not lay a hand on you. . . . the Lord must be the judge. He will decide.” (24:12, 15) And, God did.

God occupies the only seat on the supreme court of heaven. He wears the robe and refuses to share the gavel. For this reason Paul wrote, “Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. ‘I’ll do the judging,’ says God. ‘I’ll take care of it’.” (Rom. 12:19) Revenge removes God from the equation. Vigilantes displace and replace God. “I’m not sure you can handle this one, Lord. You may punish too little or too slowly. I’ll take this matter into my hands, thank you.” Is that what you want to say? Jesus didn’t.

No one had a clearer sense of right and wrong than the perfect Son of God. Yet, “when he suffered, he didn’t make any threats but left everything to the one who judges fairly.” (1 Pet. 2:23) Only God assesses accurate judgments. We impose punishments too slight or too severe. God dispenses perfect justice. Vengeance is his job. Leave your enemies in God’s hands. You’re not endorsing their misbehavior when you do. You can hate what someone did without letting hatred consume you. Forgiveness is not excusing, and forgiveness is not pretending. David didn’t gloss over or sidestep Saul’s sin. He addressed it directly. He didn’t avoid the issue, but he did avoid Saul. “Saul returned home, but David and his men went up to the stronghold.” (1 Sam. 24:22)

Do the same. Give grace, but, if need be, keep your distance. You can forgive the abusive husband without living with him. Be quick to give mercy to the immoral politician, but be slow to give him another office. Society can dispense grace and prison terms at the same time. Offer the drunk driver a second chance, but keep his license. Forgiveness is not foolishness. Forgiveness is, at its core, choosing to see your offender with different eyes.

When some Moravian missionaries took the message of God to the Eskimos, the missionaries struggled to find a word in the native language for forgiveness. They finally landed on this cumbersome twenty-four-letter choice: issumagijoujungnainermik. This formidable assembly of letters is literally translated, “not being able to think about it anymore.” To forgive is to move on, not to think about the offense anymore. You don’t excuse him, endorse her, or embrace them. You just route thoughts about them through heaven. You see your enemy as God’s child, and revenge as God’s job.

And, frankly, how can we grace-recipients do anything less? Dare we ask God for grace when we refuse to give it? This is a huge issue in the Scripture. Jesus was tough on sinners who refused to forgive other sinners. Remember his story about the servant freshly forgiven a debt of millions who refused to forgive a debt equal to a few dollars? He stirred the wrath of God: “You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt. . . . Shouldn’t you have mercy . . . just as I had mercy on you?” (Matt. 18:32–33)

In the final analysis, we give grace because we’ve been given grace. We survive because we imitate the Survivor Tree. We reach our roots beyond the bomb zone. We tap into moisture beyond the explosion. We dig deeper and deeper until we draw moisture from the mercy of God. We, like Saul, have been given grace.

And we, like David, can freely give it.

Grace,

Randy