When we hear of the name of King David our minds think of Goliath, death threats from King Saul, naked dancing in the streets, bad children, and, of course, Bathsheba. His is not a life to emulate! And yet, Samuel says of David, “the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people” (1 Samuel 13:14).
A man after God’s own heart …
That is the verse that has had me wondering for years. When I see my Creator face to face, I will ask for further explanation. It makes me wonder, if David’s had God’s heart, maybe I have hope too.
When I was young, and idealistic, I have to say I thought the whole thing of David having a heart like God’s was a typo. Really how could a man who messed up so often, with so many people (his family, and an entire nation) and with such dire consequences, have a heart after God’s own heart? That just makes no sense. That just does not seem to be logical.
Maybe the clue to how David had the heart of God comes from when the prophet Samuel came to anoint one of the sons of Jesse as the next king of Israel. The first son he meets is the eldest, Eliab and he would seem to have looked like the right man to sit on the throne, because “Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed stands here before the Lord” (1 Samuel 16:6).
But God interrupted the thoughts of Samuel on his first impressions of Eliab, and He said to Samuel, “do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7
Maybe David was only about ten when God had Samuel anoint David as king, but God saw his heart. He saw:
the gentle shepherd boy,
he saw the brave giant killer,
he saw the man who would lose all kingly demeanor and dance, un-robed, as the Ark entered the city,
he saw the great leader,
he saw the very human man who blew it royally (pun intended) by staying home while his soldiers fought on, who allowed his hands to take what his eyes desired (in another man’s wife), and who killed her husband,
who focused on his kingly duties to the point of forgetting his fatherly responsibilities,
who chose Solomon, not his eldest, as successor,
he saw a man from whose genealogy the Messiah would come, and through whom there would “never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel” (1 Kings 2:4).
In short, God knew how very human was David’s heart, but He loved it anyway! Just as God does with the hearts of all humankind. It is by His grace, that we too can hearts after God’s own heart.
And, like David, I want to reach the end of my days and have people say that my heart looks like the heart of God.
itsawonderfilledlife 