God's Plan For Good In My LifeSample

If you were uncomfortable with my personal bathroom mention on Day 1, well, here’s my biblical defense. The scriptural account of David’s experience in the cave is told in 1 Samuel 24. Scholars believe it’s during this time, in the cave, that David wrote Psalm 34. King Saul was with 3,000 soldiers in pursuit of David late one night, when he went into the same dark cave to ‘use the bathroom’. David and his men were hiding in the back of the cave.

David’s men whispered to him, “now is your chance. God has given Saul into your hands.  You can sneak up behind King Saul and take his life. Kill him!” David approached King Saul with a knife in hand, but instead of killing him, he discreetly cut a small corner off the robe that Saul was wearing, and quietly went back to his men in the back of the cave. 

Then David lectured the men that were with him, showing who was in control of his heart. He explained that Saul is God’s anointed, and though Saul was trying to kill him and he’s been running for his life, though he’s trying to figure out what God is doing, at the moment Saul is God’s king for their country and David respected that reality. David was expressing a deep reverence for God’s plan and God’s timing.  He didn’t have all the answers, but he knew not to take control of the situation into his own hands.  And so he used this as a teaching moment for his men. 

Saul left the cave and David ran after him, essentially yelling to King Saul (I’m paraphrasing), “why are you trying to kill me?! Are you believing your own rumors that I’m trying to harm you?  This is proof… I have a corner of your robe that I cut off in the cave when I could have killed you. I do not want to take your life!”  At that point King Saul repented, apologized to David, and asked God to give this future king favor.  

If David had insisted on taking matters into his own hands, he would have risked forfeiting God’s favor. By submitting to God’s control, God’s plan, and God’s timing, David avoided making a terrible mistake and missing the future God had planned for him.