Now Michal, Saul's daughter, loved David. --1 Samuel 18:20
Some fools think of happiness, blissfulness, togetherness. Some fools fool themselves I guess. They're not fooling me; I know it isn't true, I know it isn't true. Love is just a lie made to make you blue. Love hurts. --Boudleaux BryantThis is the story of Michal, a real Jewish Princess. Her name means "Who Is Like God?" Her father, King Saul, was a warrior, a politician, and a little bit crazy. He was very jealous of a young man named David. Michal's brother Jonathan was David's BFF. Jonathan and David were, like, blood-brothers. Comrades in arms, BAY-BEE, slayin' Philistines and stuff. But Michal loved David.
It's also the story of you, daughter of God.
When David killed Goliath, the Philistine giant--you know the story, right?--King Saul promised he'd give David his daughter in marriage. No, not Michal. The older sister Merab was promised as a reward for delivering Israel from their enemies. Yet when it was time for David to be given his reward, to become a son-in-law to the King, Saul instead gave his daughter Merab to another man to be his wife.
It was kind of like another Bible story, when Jacob ran from Esau. He ran to his uncle Laban's house, and fell in love with a girl named Rachel. Jacob loved Rachel. He promised Laban that he would work seven years for Rachel, as a dowry for her so she could become his wife. But on his wedding night, Laban got Jacob drunk, and in the morning Jacob found out that he had married the ugly older sister, Leah, instead. Yeah, that was messed up.
I'm sure your life is not such a soap opera. But I'd be willing to bet you have been hurt. You may have loved someone, and it didn't work out. Or maybe you were promised something, something very precious to your heart, and at the last minute it was given to someone else. That's why I said this story is for you.
So David was ruddy and handsome. When they returned to Israel, in every city they came to, the young women would come out and dance before them. They would sing in celebration, "Saul has slain his thousands, but David his ten thousands." Saul got jealous, and wanted to kill David, but he feared the people. So Saul started thinking of ways to destroy David. His advisers, who may have been trying to change his mind, told Saul that his daughter Michal loved David. This gave Saul an idea. He said he would give his daughter Michal to David to be his wife, and then maybe Michal could keep Saul updated about David's comings and goings. Plus, he thought she loved him for being a soldier; soldiers are often put in harm's way. If David were to, say, be put at the front lines against the Philistine army, then maybe something *cough-cough* terrible might happen to him.
David had heard this song and dance before. He said he had no dowry to give the King, nothing to bring to the table, so to speak. "I'm just a poor man," he said. "Who am I to become the King's son-in-law?" Saul said, "Son, the only dowry I want is the foreskins of a hundred dead Philistines." Now, you have to remember, cutting off the foreskin (circumcision) was what set the Jews apart from other peoples in the region. So he was not asking that David go and evangelize their enemies, to make them convert to Judaism. No, instead he wanted proof of death of 100 Philistine soldiers. David went above and beyond, killing 200 Philistines, and bringing back proof.
Michal's love must have grown by leaps and bounds. The man she loved had performed this mighty act of valor just to get her father to let him marry her. She must have thought David was as strong as Samson. You remember the story of Samson? He loved Delilah, a Philistine. During his wedding feast, Samson threw out a challenge to the Philistine wedding party. He told them a riddle. If they couldn't guess the answer in 7 days, they would give him 30 changes of clothes. What did they do? They asked Delilah to wheedle the answer from Samson, and go back and tell them. When she did, and he lost the bet, Samson went and killed 30 Philistines, bringing their clothes to the wedding party to cover his losses. Samson had only killed and uncovered 30 Philistines; David had killed and uncovered 200. What a guy!
Maybe you have given your heart to someone and been burned. Or maybe you thought you loved someone only to have them change. Read on.
After they were married, Saul sent soldiers to David's house to kill him. He was still that jealous. Word came to Michal, and she warned David to run. She lowered him out of a window, and he escaped. Maybe she remembered the story of Rahab, the woman in Jericho who had hidden the ten Jewish spies. She had lowered the men out of the window so they could escape. In return, the men spared her when the army came back and marched against Jericho, so that the walls fell flat and the city was routed. Maybe Michal had visions of David rescuing her from her father's house just like Rahab was rescued. It didn't quite work out like she had planned.
Saul pursued David for years. David spent some time hiding out in a Philistine city, just across the border from Israel, so Saul wouldn't be able to find him. When David came back, he had multiple opportunities to kill Saul, but he purposely let Saul live. Each time, Saul told David he was sorry, but then he would go back to chase David and try to kill him. Saul took Michal, who was now David's wife, and gave her to another man. She was being used as a pawn, like property, stolen from David, whom she loved, and made to marry another man she did not know. Meanwhile, David took at least six more wives, and had children by them.
After Saul was killed in battle, David was at work gaining the trust of the clans of Israel, so that they would follow him as king. Saul's general, a man named Abner, continued to fight for the house of Saul. Then he had an argument with Saul's grandson. Abner sent a message to David, promising to join forces with him against Saul's descendants. David demanded his wife back. Abner went and got her out of the house of Paltiel, her husband. The poor guy followed them, weeping as he went, all the way to the next city. Abner told him to go back home, since she now belonged to David. And so the two were reunited.
They didn't live happily ever after.
Michal probably thought she had been jerked around. Her first love, David, had not come to rescue her himself. She had lived with this other man for years. She gets kidnapped out of her comfortable life, away from a man who clearly loved her. Then when she gets to David's house, she sees he has a number of other wives, and they all have children by him.
She may have felt like the prophet Hosea. If you don't remember that story, Hosea was told by God to take a prostitute for a wife. He was to buy her on the open market, and take her home as her husband. This was supposed to show how Israel had prostituted themselves with other gods, and how Jehovah was willing to redeem them, to buy them back. Later in the story, Hosea's wife escapes from her home, and goes back into prostitution. Hosea was told to go and find her, again, and to buy her freedom, again, on the open market. This was to show God's faithfulness.
Maybe there have been times when you felt abandoned, left all alone by the one you loved. Maybe you landed on your feet, maybe not. There will always be scars. God may ask you to do something that is not in your nature to do, like forgive somebody, or take them back after they left you. Love hurts.
We pick up Michal's story a little later. David has been king for awhile. He has been gone fighting and defeating Israel's enemies. When he came back, Michal looked out the window and saw David dancing naked in the street. The Bible says, "And she despised him in her heart." When he comes home that night, there she is, hand on her hip. "What's wrong with you?" he demands. Her answer drips with sarcasm. "How the King of Israel distinguished himself today! He uncovered himself in the eyes of his servant's maids as one of the foolish ones shamelessly uncovers himself."
Jealous much?
David clenches his teeth and answers, "It was before the Lord (that I danced), who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint ME ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel. Therefore I will celebrate before the Lord. I will be more lightly esteemed than this and will be humble in my own eyes, but with the maids of whom you have spoken, with them I will be distinguished." OOOH, burn! Those maids she was worried about all esteemed him more than Michal did at that moment.
The very last mention of Michal in the Bible says that she had no child until the day of her death. She who loved David first, loved him most, and then felt abandoned by him, had no children by him. Even after he had rescued her and put her in the castle, along with all the other wives and concubines, she gave David no heirs. It is not clear whether she was barren, or if she was never intimate with her husband from that point forward.
Maybe this describes your life in some ways, maybe not. Maybe your life doesn't have this much drama. If so, you are truly blessed. But it is that blessing that I want to key on right now.
In the book of Revelation, God gives John a specific message to deliver to the seven churches in Asia. The very first message is to the church in Ephesus. Remember Paul wrote a letter to the Ephesians, and in it he recounted the love story God had written just for them. "But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." (Ephesians 2:4-6). But John's message to that same church was more stark: "You have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place--unless you repent." (Revelation 2:3-5).
Maybe, like Michal loved David, you were really in love with Jesus at the start. But after life happens--every day you get up, go to work, see to the kids, clean the house, cook the meals, pay the bills, drop exhausted into bed so you can get up and do the same thing again tomorrow--after all that your love may have flattened a bit. Oh, you are still faithful to Him. Your heart has not left, it just doesn't, well, beat for Him the way it used to. Maybe, like Michal arguing with David over an act of worship, you have a disagreement with God over some issue. Maybe you resent His taking someone near and dear to you too soon. Maybe you are mad at Him for not giving you that job, or that promotion, or that great house you always dreamed of. Maybe you are miffed that the Christian life didn't meet your expectations, whatever they were.
Let me encourage you to fall in love with Him all over again.
In the beginning of this post I quoted from a song called "Love Hurts." The most famous recording of that song was in 1975 by a band called Nazareth. Try to think of your life from God's perspective. He created you to love Him. He found you in somebody else's arms. He sent His Son, who grew up in Nazareth, to redeem you, to buy your freedom. He was overjoyed when you said yes to Him. But as time goes on, you spend less time with Him. You think of Him only occasionally, and even then those thought may not always be positive toward Him.
Who is like God? God is faithful. He is calling you and me to be faithful, even when life throws us for a loop. We must get up, dust ourselves off, and confess that God is God, whatever happens to us. We are His people, the sheep of His pasture. If a wolf carries us away, He will come looking for us. If we wander off and lose our way, He will find us where we are and bring us back to Himself. Don't focus on the drama, or on what has gone on before. Instead, look into His eyes and fall in love with Him all over again.
Letting go of every single dream
I lay each one down at Your feet
Every moment of my wandering
Never changes what You see
I try to win this war
I confess, my hands are weary, I need Your rest
Mighty warrior, king of the fight
No matter what I face You're by my sideWhen You don't move the mountains
I'm needing You to move
When You don't part the waters
I wish I could walk through
When You don't give the answers
As I cry out to You
I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in YouTruth is, You know what tomorrow brings
There's not a day ahead You have not seen
So let all things be my life and breath
I want what You want Lord and nothing lessWhen You don't move the mountains
I'm needing You to move
When You don't part the waters
I wish I could walk through
When You don't give the answers
As I cry out to You
I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in You
I will trust in You
No comments:
Post a Comment