1 Samuel 18:28-30 – There’s nothing like having God with us

There can be no better description for anyone than to be said that the Lord is with him. David was such a man. This shouldn’t come as a surprise for us since we were told earlier that he was after God’s own heart. This was also the secret to success in all his undertakings. This highlights for us that God must be our first pursuit in life. Like David, if we are to be effective, pursuing God must take first place in our life. In the Bible, we find this fact to be present in people who were effective. It was the same for Noah and Joseph as well as many others. So it will also be for us. Because David pursued God, so much so that he was conscious of this fact that the Lord was with him no matter where he was. He attested to this in Psalm 16, saying “I set the Lord continually before me because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” In that same Psalm, he said that in God’s presence there is fullness of joy and pleasures forever.  

In 1 Samuel 18:28, we are told that Saul saw and knew it. The fact that God is with a person is recognizable. But instead of rejoicing with him, Saul feared him. His fear was further heightened because his daughter Michal loved him. It must have dawned on him that the person he tried so very hard to get rid of was now closer to him. He had become his son-in-law. The more he thought about the love his own daughter had for him, the more he realized the increasing difficulty it was to get rid of him.  So he became even more fearful of David. And significantly we are told that Saul saw David as his enemy continually. This is to say that his hostility toward his son-in-law did not cease.  

Amazingly, in verse 30 we are told that the real enemy of Israel, the Philistines, highly respected and esteemed David. They saw in him a well-behaved man much more than any of the servants of Saul. This was perhaps a very significant accolade for him. It was not a small matter for him to be highly respected even by the enemy of the nation. Perhaps this was to help us see how ironic the whole situation was. The king, whom David served, should respect and love him but instead was fearful of him. The people that should loathe him were more respectful of him. But this shows us the way that we should conduct ourselves. Two things we must do. Firstly, we must seek to be a person after God’s heart by persistently pursuing Him. Secondly, we must conduct and behave ourselves circumspectly so that we can earn the respect of even those who are in opposition to us.