2 Samuel 5:22-25 – Progressing with God

Despite the defeat, the Philistines refused to back away, and instead came back at David in the Valley of Rephaim again. Notwithstanding having tasted victory over them in the earlier battle, David did not presumptuously just go and fight them. Instead, he consulted God and checked if he should go and fight the Philistines again. David would not take things for granted. He could have presumed on his earlier victory and took matters into his own hand. But he would rather have the mind of God in this upcoming battle. The earlier victory did not make him swell up with conceit and stop depending on God for all future battles. David was keenly aware that the battle he had won was really the Lord’s. God fighting with him was the telling difference between winning and losing. There is a lesson here. One swallow does not make a summer. We cannot deploy the same strategy for every battle. In the same way, we need fresh strategies for our daily walk with God. We need to seek the Lord afresh each day of our life for our daily sustenance. We cannot depend on yesterday’s guidance for today’s journey.

This account also shows us that the Lord has a different strategy for different occasions. Affirming that David should fight the Philistines again, but God gave him a different strategy. He told David specifically that he should not directly confront the Philistines but instead to go from behind. The Lord even defined that they should come against them just opposite the balsam trees. The strategy given to David was decidedly different and more specific than the first time. Now there was going to be the element of surprise. We can just imagine the Philistines expecting David to come out from the front as before but was taken by surprise that the attack came from behind them. A stable and victorious life in God requires us to deploy different disciplines. We need to cultivate a variety of spiritual disciplines. While it is needful to be diligent in our devotion, we also need to make time for prayer. Sometimes we intercede fervently, other times we just spent the time connecting with God in contemplative prayers. It is important that we meditate on God’s Word, but it is equally critical that we diligently study it. Yes, building a steady life requires us to be rooted in God. And we do so by cultivating multiple godly and spiritual disciplines to avail ourselves to God’s ever-transforming grace.   

It is true that timing is important in God’s movement in our lives. While we expect God to speak, we can expect Him to give us precise steps and moments we must act. We see this lesson taught here again. God told David and his people that they should only move when they hear the rustling of the balsam leaves. It was only at that critical moment that they should act. How many times we have heard “the rustling of the balsam leaves” but fail to act? It is one thing to hear from God and quite another to act. If we are to be successful, knowing what God wants and acting upon His revelation is equally important. So in this second battle with the Philistines since becoming king of all Israel, we see David obeying God and acting precisely as directed. And with God he experienced a thorough victory, defeating the Philistines from Geba to Gezer.

There are some imperatives if we desire to have a victorious and progressive journey with God. We must build a life of daily dependence on the Lord. We also need to cultivate and adopt a variety of godly disciplines to allow God to bring us into wholeness in Him. Most of all, we need to act in tandem with His will and in His time.