Obedience—The
Great Uncovering Step 2
Genesis 28:16 NIV
When Jacob awoke from
his sleep, he thought, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not
aware of it."
Are You Aware Of God’s Work In You?
Perhaps the most odd of all my actions in college
was when I got involved in a “love triangle”.
Now I am sure that the girl in the triangle did not think of herself as
being in a love triangle. She was just
having a good time going out with different guys. My two friends though who liked her and who
wanted her to choose between them felt very much like they were in a love
triangle; or at least in a very attracted to this girl triangle. For several weeks each of these two guys
pined to me about his affections for her and how he could not tell if she
liked him or was just pulling him along to feed her ego. I liked these friends and didn’t want either
one hurt and so finally when I heard the girl was going out with a third guy at our
school, I decided we should do something about this. A group of us guys snatched her one day,
brought her to the school fountain at the front of the campus and tossed her in
it. Now some would say this was a very
mean thing to do and although the girl was laughing and mad all at the same time
when she got out of the fountain and perhaps in some strange way liked all the
male attention she received that day, I was doing something that had to break
some rule. Even though I never read a
single regulation in the school handbook prohibiting guys from throwing girls
in the fountain, I cannot say that what we did was “right”…funny perhaps but
not right. What struck me in this was
that it probably revealed more about me in organizing this prank than it did
about Ella who we all thought deserved to be “baptized” in the fountain. The question is, what did this rebellious and
somewhat mean spirited act reveal about me?
We are unconscious beings who carry below the
surface a vast assortment of memories, ideas, convictions and desires. Who we think we are and what we decide about
ourselves isn’t necessarily the complete picture and perhaps not even a true
picture of us! There is much to us that
we don’t grasp…some we recognize but try to keep from others and a lot that is
hidden from us of which a little, unbeknownst to us, has trickled out where it is
observed by friends family members and even strangers. The question is not whether or not we have a
significant unconscious world within; it is what shall we do about that
unconscious world and will we let it determine key aspects of our lives.
The Bible provides us with rich insight into our
inner world and it is of great value to study the people who are described in
it. One of the most important players in
the Old Testament is David, the eventual king of Israel whom some would call the
greatest of all the Hebrew kings. David
was courageous, intelligent, creative, godly and passionate. But he also was lusty, narcissistic,
bull-headed and ambitious. He was a wild
tangle of conflicted personality traits that God worked through to establish a
culture of faith among the Hebrew people and make into a “man after his own
heart”. (See 1 Samuel 13: 14) David knew
there was much below the surface of his personality that he didn’t understand
and he invited the Lord to probe it. Search
me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and
lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24 NIV)
There is a powerful and critical way the Lord
reveals our hearts to us and it is astounding how effective it is. The law of God not only defines holy behavior
but it also uncovers layers of buried material that unconsciously drive many of
our actions. The Sermon on the Mount is a
surprisingly effective way God reveals to us our hearts and the hidden wounded
parts of our soul. Consider just the
directive to forgive. For if you
forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive
you. But if you do not forgive men their
sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15 NIV) It is amazing how difficult it is for us to
do this. In fact, it could be argued
that it is nearly impossible for many.
The painful description of David’s relationship with
his first wife Michal illustrates just how illuminating the law of forgiveness
can be. David was the golden boy of his
time, the conquering war hero who could do no wrong. Yet it is likely that deep resentments that
were developed in childhood haunted him.
His father saw so little in David that when the great prophet Samuel
came to their town and called for everyone there to meet him for a sacrificial
feast, the boy’s dad never bothered to call his youngest son back to the
house. He left David out in the fields
tending sheep while every other child of Jesse was at the party. To get a perspective on this, suppose
Michael Jordan or Bill Gates were to come to your neighborhood and everyone on
your block was invited to meet him at one of the homes down the street from
you. You had eight sons but brought only
seven of them to the meet and greet. How
would it have felt to have been the only child not asked to come? Later, we see what this mindset of the father
did to David’s siblings. When the older
brothers went off to war to fight the Philistines and David’s father sent David
to the front lines to bring food to his brothers, the oldest brother had a
bitter reaction to David’s natural curiosity about the taunts of the giant
Goliath and the way the soldiers planned on responding to Goliath’s challenge
to fight him. When Eliab, David's
oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him
and asked, "Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those
few sheep in the desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart
is; you came down only to watch the battle." (1 Samuel 17:28 NIV)
Of course, we know that David not only ended up
watching the battle but played the most important part in the Israelites
winning the fight. As a result of this
bravery and other successful accomplishments in war, David was made a high
ranking general in Saul’s army. His
popularity exploded and he was revered by the Israelites. In fact he was more beloved than the king
himself. This infuriated King Saul and
his jealousy inflamed his hatred of David.
The king concocted a plan to have David killed. He told the boy that if he could somehow kill
one hundred Philistines, he would give his daughter Michal in marriage. Michal was in love with David and it would
seem the feelings were mutual for David agreed to the bridal price. David successfully killed one hundred
Philistines and won Michal as his bride but their marital bliss did not last
long. Saul’s hatred of David grew so
bitter that it became clear soon Saul would kill him if he did not immediately
go into hiding. His wife Michal helped in his escape despite the risk she took
enraging her father. She knew it was
possible that he would kill her for the part she played in David’s
getaway. But her love for David was too
great for her to worry about her own life.
She had to help David save his.
What followed is tragic. The timeline isn’t clear
but this marriage of infatuation and sacrificial love fell apart. Abigail quickly got on a donkey and,
attended by her five maids, went with David's messengers and became his
wife. David had also married Ahinoam of
Jezreel, and they both were his wives.
But Saul had given his daughter Michal, David's wife, to Paltiel son of
Laish, who was from Gallim. (1 Samuel 25:42-44 NIV) Did first Saul force Michal to abandon her
husband and marry someone he handpicked to replace him or did David first marry
Ahinoam and Abigail and as a consequence Michal abandon her marriage to David
and marry Paltiel upon her father’s direction?
We don’t know. Probably Michal
was the first one to remarry based upon Saul’s fury with David and Michal’s
fear of her father. David now had been
rejected by the two most important men in his life, his father and the king who
had taken him under his wing. Michal may
have been a mere pawn in her father’s hand but her rejection of David clearly
stung David and his bitterness over her betrayal worked like dry rot in his
soul. He never forgave her. One might argue that he couldn’t. He was still the little boy whose father did
not think he was good enough to warrant attendance at the party.
Ten years passed.
David had now added at least five more wives and perhaps more, fought a
bitter war with Saul’s son and Michal’s brother Ish-Bosheth to gain control of
all of Israel and no longer had King Saul to fear due to his death six years
before. Ish-Bosheth’s general Abner had
become incensed with Ish-Bosheth and so decided to form an alliance with David
and pave the way for David to be king over all Israel. David was more than happy to make this
agreement but first he had a requirement if he was to make peace with Abner and
his army. The general had to bring
Michal back to David so that he could force her to be his wife again. For perhaps ten years Michal had been with
her new husband and he loved her deeply.
She was his only wife…he was her only husband. David on the other hand had at least seven
wives and many more he would take later.
What sort of bitterness of soul could lead to such a cold hearted,
spiteful demand? It was an ugly
scene. David told Abner and King
Ish-Bosheth, "I will make an agreement with you. But I demand one thing
of you: Do not come into my presence unless you bring Michal daughter of Saul
when you come to see me." Then David sent messengers to Ish-Bosheth son of
Saul, demanding, "Give me my wife Michal, whom I betrothed to myself for
the price of a hundred Philistine foreskins." So Ish-Bosheth gave orders and had her taken
away from her husband Paltiel son of Laish.
Her husband, however, went with her, weeping behind her all the way to
Bahurim. Then Abner said to him, "Go back home!" So he went back. (2 Samuel 3:13-16 NIV)
Consider an imaginary conversation taking place
between David and Jesus, one much like what happened between Christ and the
rich young ruler. David asks Jesus what
he must do to inherit eternal life and Jesus tells him as he tells us all in
the Sermon on the Mount to forgive, “Forgive Michal for marrying Paltiel and
come follow me.” David replies, “I can’t;
it’s too much to ask, to demand I forgive her!”
Now, why couldn’t he forgive Michal for remarrying? Why did he make her return to him? He no longer loved her. She didn’t love him anymore it seems. Why couldn’t David just forgive Michal and
move on in his life and let her move on too?
What drove his determination to ruin Michal’s life and Michal’s husband’s
life even though it is a fundamental principle of God’s Kingdom to forgive
those who hurt us? Perhaps, it was
because David always had to prove he was the biggest man in the room, always
had to be the conqueror, always needed to have the prize in his hand, always
needed to be respected and appreciated.
He could never let anyone get the best of him, never be disrespected. He
had a deep seated need to prove his worth, to be someone! Why might that be? Perhaps, his bitter disdain for Michal and
her needs and his unwillingness to forgive her was rooted in something deep and
ugly…perhaps it had to do with his battle to prove his worth to his dad. Maybe, there was a wound in David’s soul that
had never healed and when someone he cared about deeply reminded him of the
rejection he experienced when he was a child, he could not let go of the hurt
it uncovered.
What if though, everything went in a different
direction and the rich young ruler did give up his wealth and follow Jesus and
David did forgive Michal for marrying someone else? Is it possible that in doing the command of
God, by forgiving Michal, David might have been freed by God of his need to
prove himself, freed of his neurotic need to live up to the expectations of his
father? We cannot say what might have
been but we do know this. The commands
of God are not intended to take apart the joy we have in being independent and
free. God’s demands are based in love
and if we obey Him, there is power in God to make us more free than we ever
thought possible. Consider the promise
found in Malachi made to those who take God seriously enough to do as He
commands; who believe that in all His ways He is good, even when He tells us to
do something that we feel is too hard to do.
But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise
with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released
from the stall. (Malachi 4:2 NIV)
