David was a Real Man

So here I sit in a random dorm room in Turner Hall. We are preparing for a very important moment - Gilmore Girls! I am still sick, so I recruited a few friends to help me write today's blog.

My two friends, who will remain anonymous (I mean this is the world wide web we're talkin' about), they have been learning about David. THE David, the man after God's own heart, David. They are explaining to me about the Brook Besor. It's a location where some important things happened in David's life. It is a place of compassion and mercy.

Out in the wilderness David teams up with King Achish of Gath. Together their armies go to attack Israel and Saul. While they are away the Amalekites take captive all the women and children of David's party/town called Zikleg. King Achish releases David and the army returns to find their village plundered. It's in this moment when all David's men turn against him and plot to kill him that he returns to God and asks for his counsel. So they set off to find the Amalekites. When they reach the Brook Besor a third of David's men stay behind because they are so worn out from the previous mission and tracking the Amalekites. While at the Brook Besor they see a man laying in a field and they bring him to David. It is in this moment that we see David's heart for compassion. He takes pity on the man and feeds, clothes, and gives him something to drink. As it turns out this man is actually an Egyptian slave of the Amalekites and he leaves David and his men to the Amalekites' camp. Where they take back all that they had lost. But the story does not end there. Upon returning to the other third of David's men, the two thirds that went with David don't want to give any to the men who didn't go. But David believes that all the people of his army are important, so once again his compassionate heart takes care of those he is called to take care of.

So what do we learn from this? In Psalm 53 it says, "Not a man, not a mouse slips through the cracks" (msg). David learned this from God when he returned to him for prayer and counsel after he found everything gone. And it is something he in turn returns to others. We experience God and so we need to share what we receive with others. Eugene Peterson says, "When we're living this life right, this is what happens. We pass on the experience, pass on the God experience to the people we meet. They experience what we are experiencing in God."

Thanks A and A!