When God’s Answers Seem Wrong to Us (1 Sam 20.13, 16)
“May the LORD be with you, as he has been with my father.”
“May the LORD seek out the enemies of David.”
Background
In prayer, we are often seeking God’s will for us and others. We are called to do so (e.g., Col 1.9). Some passages even suggest that whatever we pray for, we will get (Mark 11.24).1 Even if there were no passages about seeking the will of God, we would be led to do so by the nature of our faith. If God is our Creator and Sustainer, and the sovereign God of the universe, and desires a relationship with us, then we would want to know what He wants from us, and how he wishes us to live.
Yet what happens when He wants something different for us than we expect? Or something from us that we do not believe we deserve? How do we know that what we believe God wants for us is actually what he wants?
The passage and two prayers in 1 Samuel 20 are good examples of someone who has discerned and accepted God’s will, even though it is to his own detriment. The passage is part of a long section about the relationship between King Saul (rejected by God because of his faults as king), Saul’s son Jonathan (who, by ancient tradition, should be the next king), and David (who will be the next king as chosen by God).
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