A story of contrasts

David is a giant in the story of the people of God, but when we first encounter David he is clearly the runt of the litter — so insignificant that his father Jesse doesn’t even think to call him in from the fields when Samuel comes looking for Israel’s future king.

Before he’s more than an adolescent, David takes on the Giant Goliath. We next see David as a musician in Saul’s court, gifted with the ability to soothe the king’s anxieties with his music. Through the stories of Scripture, we watch David grow into a commander of men and then into a commander of armies and of a people.

As we watch David grow, we see Saul shrink. Fearful, anxious, overwhelmed by his own limitations, Saul begins to see David as more of a threat than as a friend. Saul’s jealousy forces David into the wilderness and the life of a fugitive.

In his nearly 20 years as a fugitive from King Saul, David gathers around him a ragtag band of misfits and outcasts. Unlike Saul, who has a cabinet of cronies and relatives, a government of graft and greed, David gathers around him — and protects — the lost and the least, the most vulnerable of society.

In his role as king, Saul had lots of opportunities to use his power and position for the benefit of others, of the whole kingdom. In his years as a fugitive from Saul, David had lots of opportunities to use his growing power and position as an outsider for the benefit of others, of the whole kingdom. Their opportunities may have been vastly different, but both Saul and David were both shaped and revealed by the opportunities set before them. David’s time in the wilderness taught him about the necessity of leaning upon God rather than himself.

The stories of Saul and of David tell us that it is in the nitty gritty, not so pretty details of everyday life that our true character is revealed. Neither Saul nor David were perfect. To borrow the words of the Apostle Paul, “both sinned and fell short of the glory of God.” The differences between David and Saul are most noticeable in their approach to life and leadership. Saul could never get himself out of the way. For Saul, leadership, power, position were always about him and never about the country, never about the people, never about lifting up those on the margins. Saul was good at the empty rituals just for show, but not much for substance. He never learned to rely upon God rather than himself.

David was more mindful of who he was before God, not as leader. Though David had his moments of failure (sometimes horrible failure) his response to God was to let go of himself altogether and to lay everything he was and had before God, to cast himself upon God even in failure. Unlike David, Saul never understood that he was only fully himself when he was fully alive before God.

I’d rather have a David kind of leader than a Saul, any day of the week.