The Scriptures reveal different aspects of David. Since David was chosen by God, anointed by Samuel (1 Sam. 161-13), played music at Saul’s court (1 Sam. 16:14-23), killed Goliath (1 Sam. 17), and was praised by the women in the cities of Israel (1 Sam. 18), he had entered into the world of complexity. In his early twenty, did David have a complicated heart to deal with the complicated world? The world is complicated. This is the reality. It’s just a matter of when we are mature enough to recognize it, embrace it with wisdom, and live alongside it with integrity.
The path of growth is the path of being de-created and re-created. We unlearn what we think we have known; we relearn what we have not yet known. In the process, we grow older. Hopefully, we also grow up. For David, he grew up in proportion to his age. He never attempted to return to the old, good time when he shepherded sheep (1 Sam. 16:11) and attacked lions and bears (1 Sam. 17:34-36). These animals are either harmless or harmful. We don’t need wisdom to discern whether they are for you or against you. They have no mixed motives. They are straight forward. We see what we get. In comparison with the animal world, the world that we live in is interwoven with good and evil. No one is pure enough not to be mingled with both. We are saints and sinners. David dealt with the animal world; he now dealt with the complicated world in which it required a simple faith with a complicated heart.
Once David entered into the wilderness, David started to feel naked. He had no one and nothing to rely on. He had no mask to put on. I should say there was no need for David to do so, for he had no audience. He faced God with his nakedness. He lived his life with his naked self. He wandered on and off with no title. No one paid attention to his gifts (e.g. musical talent). No one praised him with a song: “Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” (1 Sam. 18:7). David wasn’t a warrior in the wilderness. David was just David. God was David’s God, not the God of Israel. David must learn to relate to God personally first. Otherwise, it’s pointless for David to say that God is the God of Israel. It’s a hollow religious confession with no personal connection. No connection; no conviction.
Because of David’s authenticity and nakedness, his faith toward God became simple. He was being saved from the complicated world by returning to his authentic self. David wasn’t less complicated as a person. He returned to child-like faith as a child of God. The sign of such a child-like faith was prayer. God recreated David by stripping him off (de-creation). Facing one’s authentic self is God’s creative act in life. God creates a new self out of the old (See 2 Cor. 5:17).
The exile became a formative time in the life of David. The life of David epitomizes the life of Israel as a nation. The so-called The Former Prophets—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings—address the fact that why Israel ended up in exile as a nation: What went wrong? What did Yahweh require of us? Why did we fail as a nation? Was God faithful and good?
The exile was a formative time in the development of Israel’s theology. The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and exile from the land, led to a serious evaluation of the nation’s relationship with God, and to questions of how to maintain that relationship within a hostile, polytheistic culture. This is reflected in the theology of creation.[1]
The exile led Israel to a serious evaluation of the nation’s covenantal relationship with God and how to maintain and nurture that relationship in exile. Israel either abandoned or embraced God. There was only either-or; there was no in-between. David must have evaluated his relationship with God with seriousness and sincerity. As a result, he embraced God in prayer.
[1] Robin Routledge, Old Testament Theology: A Thematic Approach (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2008), p. 126.
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