Deep Calls

I have never, not ever, not once .   .   .   n e v e r .  .  .  heard a sermon on the next passage of scripture.  You didn't learn it in Sunday School ... again    n e v e r   seen a Sunday School curriculum include this story. Yet I think it may be one of my favorite Bible stories ever. Curious? Let me include it in-total: 1 Sam 19:18-24                      When David had fled and made his escape, he went to Samuel                    at Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him. Then he and                    Samuel went to Naioth and stayed there. Word came to Saul:           ...

OK...I agree ~ That is one of the cheesiest titles ... well .... certainly in a long time. But -- I will bet that you are asking yourself (if you have been reading this series since the Ruth beginning) What do dodecahedrons have to do with David? And...yes...that is a pretty cheesy tongue-twister ~ sorry (sort-of) OK...WHAT am I talking about? and while we are asking                  WHAT is a dodecahedron ?                                                                                    ...

So, you know the story: David kills Goliath. David           ~ the youngest son, the one Eliab (David's oldest brother) hated and abhorred ~ does what the rest of the entire army of Israel (yes, including King Saul) will not do: he takes on Goliath and kills him by hitting him in the center of his forehead with a rock from a sling. Then, adding insult to injury David takes Goliath's sword and cuts off Goliath's head. . .and carries it around for a while. Mental picture: really yucky!! Yeah! It is a great story ... so great the it is metaphor for the victory of the "little guy". So -- by the by -- did you notice that God seems to have "a thing" for the youngest son, especially youngest sons who have a really bad relationship with their older brothers? Jacob...Joseph...and now David. Hmmmmm. .  . interesting, don't you think? but that is not what I want to write about. I am caught by the reactions. The nex...

This is Javier Bardem,      a young Javier Bardem.                                                  You may have seen him in movies like "Eat, Pray, Love", "No Country for Old Men" This is a picture of him when he was young. I include it because if I was going to cast parts for a movie about these stories, I would cast Javier as David, the lead role.   David is king                         ...well kind-of. In the truest sense, by authority given by God and by anointing, he is king. Unfortunately he still lives at home, is the family 'sheep-sitter', and has a side-job working for Saul who, by the by, is the sitting king   ...  who God has stripped of His authority and Holy Spirit, but has left sitti...

What do you do if you are anointed king of Israel?  It would seem, you go to work for the king you will replace. NO! That doesn't sound right...in fact, that sounds, well, dangerous! But ~ that is exactly what David does. Oh, it isn't his idea...this is one of God's best, and -- in my "never to be humble" opinion -- funniest setups. There are, actually, a few things about this story that amuse me. So, the story. Unbeknownst to Saul, God has moved on from him, and sent Samuel to anoint David as the king of Israel. There is a saying we all use pretty flippantly: God moves in mysterious ways. This story is one that makes people ~ me for instance ~ quote that saying. So here are my questions: 1) Why does Saul get to keep the crown and throne? 2) Why did God anoint David, and then ... nothing? 3) Really???  An evil spirit FROM GOD??? I'm rambling...sorry. Here is the story: So, David is anointed as king, and the next day -- maybe even that same day...

   David is such a significant figure in scripture. He is so important that whole of his story is spread throughout the books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles and, of course, Psalms. Jesus calls himself, "The Son of David." Isn't it interesting that the very important King David's story begins, as it were, "Once upon a time there was this boy that no one thought much of. A boy so insignificant that he was left out and forgotten by his own family, forgotten even when the most important spiritual leader in of all Israel drops by for dinner."        So, David gets up one morning...early as usual, like "it is still dark" early. He goes out as he always does to tend the sheep. Grabbing his harp on the way out the door, he faces what, for all the world, looks like every other day: walk the hills, tend the sheep, kill a bear or perhaps a lion, (yeah...we'll talk about that later), sing and play the harp a bit, tend the sheep, walk the hills. Back at h...

OK...turning the page ~ Starting a new ... well, not actually new ... focus. You see, my daughter and I decided over Christmas that we would start to tandem-blog: both of us looking at the same theme/story/area of scripture and then each of us writing what ~ well ~ what ever. Then we would put links in our blogs to each other's blog. So...we decided to look at David for a while. His story is crazy long in scripture. To read it all you must look at lots of the books : 1 and 2 Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, of course Psalms . . . . As we talked we decided to "begin at the beginning" or really, just before the beginning: The book of Ruth. So we did. And now we are on to David. Beth has started already. To read her first 'David' blog click right here.  She began with a personal story. I am going to start by looking at David when he kills Goliath. I warn you, I will probably hop-scotch around a bit, rather than write a nice, neat chronological study of David ...