A snapshot
A snapshot of a man. You do not see what was before or what will come. A man who would be king meets the men who would be his subjects. He places himself before them. All that he is, that he has done, and the promise of what he will be. They accept him based on three things they know.
The book is 2 Samuel 5:5. The man is David, the subjects are the tribes of Israel. They accept him because he is kin, a son of the tribe of Judah. Second, they know he is what they need. He is a military man, with a score of successes to his credit. But most of all God has said he will be their shepherd, their ruler. Divine appointment.
What brought the man to this point? What made the man a king? Was it being a shepherd as a small boy? Was it killing a giant as a youth? Was it being selected by Samuel to be the next king? Was it playing a harp for the moody King Saul? His friendship with Jonathan? The hiding and fighting for his very life? All of the above?
What would take him from here? What would contribute to his rise as King? What would make him the husband or father he would become? What would make him the adulterer, the liar, the murderer he would be? If they had known what the future held, would they have entered the covenant agreement with him? We will never know because they would not have known.
What makes up a man? This week there has been a lot of information about men in the football world that took the accolades they had been given by the public and used them in the direct or indirect abuse of young children. The same thing that brought the attention to their achievements brought the platform that gave them license for the destruction of innocence.
What makes the difference? Is a man his actions or is it his heart? David was a man of good actions and bad actions. Which do we remember him for? His adultery with Bathsheba was sensational but so what his killing of Goliath.
For me it is his psalms. For me they show the heart of the man. Not only his heart for God, but the heart he showed God. As trite as it sounds, he bared his soul. And we have the evidence in print. In blood, in tears, in anger, in passion, in truth.
That is the man I choose to remember…the snapshot I choose to keep….
