David's Attitude Toward Saul

Imagine waking up every morning knowing that someone was after you and this same person had once been anointed to serve God and watch out for God's people. David experienced  hard persecution under Saul who was ruler over Israel. David also was aware of God's plan for his own future to lead Israel.  He spoke up and tried proving to Saul that he was loyal a couple of times and Saul would back off temporarily. When his hard-hearted feelings came to the surface again, he forgot about David's loyalty.  David indeed was loyal and had Saul's best interests at heart and held to the conviction he would not harm 'the Lord's anointed' (I Samuel 24:4-10, 26:7-11). Saul was so deceived that he even consulted a fortune teller instead of God. Saul was eventually killed in a battle by the Philistines.

How does one live in peace under the conditions that David was living in?  David escaped Saul's attacks several times.  How could he live peaceably knowing he had to stay on the run? It definitely bothered him. He may have even questioned himself. Many of the psalms reflect his prayers to God for this situation. He knew God would take care of him and he would be free. It was God's peace that kept him.

In Romans 12:18 Paul states:

18 If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.

We are exhorted to live peaceably with all men.  Sometimes that is not possible. Notice, Paul says "If it be possible".  If you look around at our culture today, this seems like a huge task given the contentious spirit in our culture.  We need to listen to God and behave wisely in dealing with contentious people. We have to realize that people sometimes will never change and just walk away.  Contention is nothing to mess around with, the more one feeds it, the more it grows.

Contention is different from conflict. People have their own conflicting opinions and we often disagree, but contention involves knocking people down mentally or even physically as it was with Saul.

David knew that dealing with Saul's problems was above his pay grade.  David could not talk to Saul and resolve what was between them. He left that to God. David was a very successful warrior and behaved wisely, but David kept his hands clean when it came to Saul and when Saul was killed David mourned over him. Many people in David's situation probably would have jumped for joy.

God knows all that is going on, we most often don't.  The wisest thing we can do is put it in prayer mode and trust God to work it all out. We are not responsible for another's peace. If God wants us to get involved, then there will be some profitable outcome. He will will be very clear about the open door to the situation. Otherwise, we need to focus on our own pastures.

Living under the New Testament Covenant  with Jesus Christ as Lord means we are all God's sons and daughters. We have direct access to the Father whom we can turn to when we need help. Then how we deal with attacks will speak to the quality of His Word of our lives.