I've been involved in a study of the life of David and find myself marveling at his life in many ways. David was anointed to be King by Samuel at age 15 and yet it was 15 long years before he became King over Judah, and then another 7 yrs. before he became King over all of Israel.....a whopping 22 year wait from the point of his prophetic anointing until the actual occurrence.We can learn so much from David and the choices that he made during this difficult waiting period.
David had an understanding of honor. Imagine the battle that must have gone on inside of him as he knew that he had been anointed and chosen by God to be king, and instead began a lengthy love-hate relationship with King Saul, a man who had once known the favor of God but had it removed because of his inability to obey and choose God's approval over man's.
Initially, Saul liked David and appointed him to be his armor bearer. David, promoted into Saul's inner circle, was forced to live in the shadow of a man whose position would one day become his own. Saul soon became jealous of the favor on David's life to the point that he wanted him dead. In all of this, David watched over his own heart and maintained a position of honor.
Honor, in David's life, seems to be fundamentally linked with trust. David trusted that God would be the one to fulfill the anointing on his life and not himself. David's life reveals a beautiful picture and example of what it looks like to wait for God's timing, process, and promotion in a person's life. David was available and obediently walked through the doors that God opened for him, but you don't find David manipulating, scheming, or trying to pry open his own doors. He never violated God's principles of obedience, integrity, and honor as he waited for God's timetable and promotion to come to pass.
If ever we need to heed a lesson from David's life, it's this one. I think that God is way more concerned with process than He is with the end result. We seem to be a people obsessed with shortcuts and finding the easy way out of the situations we find ourselves dumped into. God is looking for those who won't always look for the easy way, but those who have positioned their hearts to obey no matter the cost. He is watching for those who won't lower the standards or bend them to meet their immediate need. Sometimes our obedience may look as simple as cleaning up the dirty dishes others have left behind, or staying up when you are tired to finish an assignment that is due, or apologizing to a friend when you shared some hurtful gossip. Other times it requires a larger sacrifice such as stepping away from a large salary to follow God's leading elsewhere, or receiving rejection from leaders or friends because you chose to follow God in making a very unpopular decision.
Whatever the case, our days of following God are made up of moments, and it is in the moments that we make our choices. In the end, it is the choices we make that determines the direction of our lives. It seems God is never in a hurry when it comes to promotion, and our microwave culture struggles with the day in, day out faithfulness and obedience required to see our process through to completion.
Another reason to marvel at David is that he operated out of a place of intimacy with God. It is worth marveling at because David did not have the Holy Spirit indwelling him as believers do today. David is a great example of one who "pulled" on his relationship with God to the point that he experienced an intimacy and favor that is challenging to us today. It is from this place of intimacy that David drew strength to face life's challenges and the moments that defined his life.
The good news is that because of Jesus' sacrifice we have an even greater level of favor and blessing made available to us as God's children. We now can experience unprecedented intimacy and access to the Father. You can tell someone who walks in true intimacy because the Father's interests have become their own. I believe that our Father God is raising up a generation who have known His love and heard His heartbeat. They will be willing to walk in trust and honor, following Him with a tenacity of Spirit, and able to submit to His ways and process.
Those who submit to process will walk and move in greater levels of authority. Having said "yes" to Him, and "no" to their flesh and soulish nature, they are able to walk freely and move unfettered in the realm of the Spirit. Like Jesus, they can say, "the enemy has nothing in me" (Jn. 14:30) They are free to experience love, peace, joy, and great contentment found in knowing the beauty and goodness of His ways.
Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit, sow a habit and
you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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