1 Samuel 16:14–17:1 (ESV)
Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him. 15 And Saul’s servants said to him, “Behold now, a harmful spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is skillful in playing the lyre, and when the harmful spirit from God is upon you, he will play it, and you will be well.” 17 So Saul said to his servants, “Provide for me a man who can play well and bring him to me.” 18 One of the young men answered, “Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him.” 19 Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me David your son, who is with the sheep.” 20 And Jesse took a donkey laden with bread and a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them by David his son to Saul. 21 And David came to Saul and entered his service. And Saul loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer. 22 And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, “Let David remain in my service, for he has found favor in my sight.” 23 And whenever the harmful spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him.
Saul is now in the middle ground. He still is king, he still has the kingdom under his care, but he’s lost the Spirit and anointing of God to rule it. From now he’s trying to hold onto the kingdom with his own strength, and it will repeatedly fail him. Before he was trying to do things his own way and in his own power, but he had a secret sauce actually allowing him to keep it. Now…it’s all on him.
In the gap, David has been anointed by Samuel to be king (not that Saul knows this yet). God’s Spirit has come upon him. What was with Saul is now with David instead, but Saul still holds the position. How does Saul get introduced to David? Through his service. David’s playing calms Saul down, he feels God’s Spirit again through proximity. He can relax. And he loves David for this. But we all know it won’t last forever. And this is why:
Saul greatly loved David, because David was in service to him. He had the Spirit of God, he had all the characteristics and qualities that would make him a great king for God, but now they were used for Saul. Saul’s heart turned when he realised David wasn’t his servant, but God’s.
Saul still thought everything was for him. We didn’t read it in this thread that we have been pulling but at the end of chapter 14 it says Saul attached any strong or valiant man he found to himself. He thought David was there for him. And David was humble, so of course he was faithfully serving Saul, but he was ultimately serving God. And in David’s heart, that’s who he was always serving. That’s who he was ultimately loyal to.
Funnily enough, when Saul is on the hunt for David later on, it is David’s faithfulness to God that stops him from killing Saul multiple times. David is the freshly anointed, but he always honours God by not touching Saul because Saul is who God had anointed king before him. Saul eventually honours David for this, calling him a better man than himself, and acknowledging that David will become king for God no matter what Saul tries to do to prevent it. But not before becoming twisted and bitter and enraged by the fact that David isn’t there just to serve Saul and his kingdom, but God and His kingdom.
We can’t have this same mindset Saul had. If we think people are here to serve us, we’re going to get real disappointed real quick. God will take them away for his purposes, he won’t let us keep them around. And with that mindset we are going to hurt people if they let us. Chew them up to get whatever we can from them and then spit them out when they no longer serve our purposes. We have to view what God has given us, including the people in our lives, the right way. They are here for God’s purposes. We are here for God’s purposes. If we all have the right understanding then we’ll actually have a great relationship and get to do great things together for a long time. If we don’t…well, that good feeling we have because of them won’t last long. And we’ll be back to clinging at straws to try and keep what God has taken away from us.