God doesn’t change, Scripture tells us. “I the Lord do not change.” (Malachi 3:6)
“Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever,” Hebrews 13:8. We can trust God because God is unchanging in faithfulness to us. God is not fickle. He is the same, always, which is a bedrock foundation for our trust in Him.
Is God’s unchangingness a character trait that gets passed down to his children? If God doesn’t change, how fixed should we be? Today, we come to the last part in our series of David’s life in the days before he becomes king, I Samuel 27:1 – 28:2. (Read)
David, I think, had come to the end of his rope. He was worn down, tired of running. The king of Israel was relentless in hunting him. And, what makes it even harder, David had done nothing wrong. Twice, David was so close to Saul that he could hear him breathing, and twice, he refused to kill the king, even though he could have. By refusing to kill Saul, David demonstrated his innocence. He was not plotting to take over as king. If he was, he had two prime opportunities to do so, but he would not kill the man who was hunting him.
And yet, king Saul was unrelenting in pursuing David from place to place. It made no difference that to him that David had proven his innocence. Saul saw him as a threat and kept after him. David was hidden in the southern part of the country, which was called the wilderness, the barren hilly southern part of Israel that melds into the desert. It was a hard place to survive, but it did offer some protection. But, Saul just kept coming. He tracked him down from place to place. One time, Saul got so close to him that only the last minute arrival of an urgent SOS message asking for his help elsewhere prevented him from capturing and killing David. David kept trying to stay one step ahead of the hunter. Finally, weary, worried for his family, and exhausted, David came face to face with his soul. “In his heart,” the Scripture says, and by that it means, in the depths of David’s being, he comes to grip with the fact that king Saul will not give up hunting him down. Wherever David went, Saul would come after him. That wasn’t going to change. And, David refused to kill the king. That wasn’t going to change either. So, if the king was not going to give up, and David was not going to kill him, then it would be only a matter of time before he was cornered by Saul. There was only so much land in which to maneuver. The box of southern Israel was only so big. It would only be a matter of time, he realized, before he was cornered in the box called the wilderness. What should he do? Was his death inevitable?
I wonder if David had heard this geometrical riddle: imagine 9 dots on a paper, lined up in 3 equal rows of 3 dots each, all evenly spaced. Without letting your pencil leave the paper, draw 4 straight lines through the 9 equally spaced dots. Well, we can start in one corner and draw a square with the four lines, but anyway we try it, it leaves out that last dot in the middle. The only way to solve the riddle is to change our thinking. We begin to find the solution when we realize we don’t have to confine our lines to the dots.
We can draw lines that extend beyond the dots. Start at the bottom left and draw a line up the left side that takes in the 3 dots in the left column. Keep going; don’t stop at the dot. Then, take the second line down to the right through the top middle dot, and extend it down outside the box until it is equal with the bottom row. Draw the third line back across left across the bottom row to the place where we started, then draw the fourth line to back up towards the right to connect the final 2 dots. Now before you start drawing that on your bulletins to see if it works, here’s the point; sometimes, we have to change our thinking.
David changed his thinking. He realized he would be caught in the wilderness box, so he started thinking outside the box. He used a different strategy. He moved out of the wilderness of Israel and took up residence in a neighboring country. There, he received the protection of the king. And, when Saul realized what David had done, he gave up the hunt. David tried a different plan. He went outside the box of conventional thinking and saved his life.
This idea of trying something different gets me thinking. How about us? Are there situations where we need to change our plans? Try something else? Adopt a different attitude? Work the problem in a new way? If what we are doing is not working, maybe we should try something else!
I know it’s hard to change what we do. We all prefer to keep doing the same thing the same way. It’s just so much easier! Let me tell you; I’ve got a long narrow backyard. There’s a fence around it so no one sees it. Why mow it? Let’s just say it’s not on the top of my list to mow the grass back there this summer. I prefer to let it alone. It’s just going to rain anyway – and it will grow back. So, I let it go until Lucy and I realized there are things growing in our back yard. We didn’t mean grass, but the several species of animals who have now taken cover in our backyard grass. So, I get out and mow it. But I would have preferred to do nothing.
What can’t there be some things that just stay the same? Why must everything change? Why can’t we keep on trying the same tried and true methods that seemed to work for our parents or even just a year ago? Let me just float this question for us: Are we getting the results we want with the methods we are using?
Psychologists say insanity is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. But, we know what insanity really is. It’s doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Are you wondering why the results don’t change? Maybe it’s time to adopt a different strategy, just like David.
What one person can do, just trying it differently. The sub-continent of India groaned to be free from British rule. They ached to be free, their own people. But any violence or revolt was met by the swift response of the British army. There was no way the people could win – until one, 5 foot 4 inch lawyer named Mohandas Gandhi thought about the situation differently. Taking a page from the Bible and Jesus’ life, he tried something different; non-violent action in response to illegal acts of the British governor.
His change made all the difference and brought independence to India. His change also influenced a Christian preacher named Martin Luther King. Too bad the British churches in India remained stuck in their ways. Gandhi was attracted to Jesus and went to church to learn more about him. He was met at the door by the Elders of the church who told him he was not welcome because of his race. How India might have been different if the Elders had been open to a new thing.
What situations are you in that seems locked in the same old thing, where you would long for a difference? Maybe it’s time to try something new. A group of employees had a boss hard to work for, difficult. Finally, they became so fed up with him that they typed up a glowing resume about him and secretly sent it out to other companies. He was hired away and they got rid of their boss. They tried something different.
An older married couple spent their lives arguing and bickering. Finally, for their anniversary, their kids gave them counseling sessions as a gift. The first time they showed up at the counselor’s office, they started arguing. The counselor asked them a question and they would start arguing. He would ask them another question and they would argue and bicker, argue and bicker. Finally, the counselor said, “Enough. Now, I’m going to do something I have never done before.” He got up from his desk, went around to the older woman, put both his arms around her and kissed her on the lips. Then he turned to the man and said, “Now, that is what she needs at least 3 times a week.” The old man thought about that for a minute, then he said, “Okay doc, if you say so. I can bring her in Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.” If the way you’re trying isn’t working, try something different.
Here’s the thing. Maybe God wants you to try something different. Changing what you are doing may be hard for you, but let God speak to you about it. Have you been trying to accomplish something that is God-honoring: mending a relationship, getting your point across at work, trying to train up your child, find a new job, pay off your debt and balance your budget, bring caring back into your marriage, break a habit, do better at school, have more self-control? Doing the same thing over and over again and still hoping that this time it will turn out different? Maybe it’s time to try another method. Maybe God’s been nudging you about an inner change of character. We talk about transformation, but maybe it’s time for you to transform internally.
Change is part of life; no way around it. Christ followers have had to change from the very beginning. That first church in Jerusalem was comfortable, but it took a general persecution to scatter them so that they would spread the Word of Jesus beyond the city. Another time, Peter is led to a Roman officer’s house, tells them about Jesus and the Holy Spirit suddenly falls on the non-Jews, just like it did on the Jews at Pentecost. Well, that was completely unexpected. When Peter reports back to Jerusalem what happened, they are amazed. They say, “So then God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.” (Acts 11:18) It took a direct intervention from God to lead them to a new way of thinking. Is that what it will take for you to change? Just try it differently.
Even something that you need to try again, you can approach a different way. This wasn’t the first time David sought refuge with Achish, king of Gath. When David is first hunted by Saul, he asks Achish for asylum, but he is almost killed. He was seen as an arch enemy of Achish, a captain in Saul’s army that was fighting against Achish. And, David was alone. This time, the situation has changed. David is no longer in Saul’s army. In fact, he is Saul’s enemy, just like Achish. And, David is no longer alone. He has 600 men. That’s a nice addition to any king’s army. Achish welcomes him and his troops, puts him in a town on the border to act as a guard in that part of the country and hopes David may help him win the southern part of Israel away from Saul. He plays it smart.
David plays it smart, too. He asks for a town away from the capitol city, so he has freedom to do as he pleases. He is still the servant of Achish, so he has to bring him tribute and treasure. Rather than attack Jews, he raids the enemies of both Achish and Israel so he doesn’t damage his reputation in Israel for the future. When he brings Achish the spoils of his raids, he tells him he raided southern towns in Israel, but instead, he raids towns in other locations. David has gone back to Achish, but he approaches it a different way.
And, God preserved him. This doesn’t mean God approves of David’s raiding. In fact, David is prevented by God from building the temple because, it says later, he was “a man of blood….” (I Chronicles 22:7 – 10), but he does preserve David. And, in the climactic battle between Israel and the Philistines, Achish takes David and his men along to fight against Israel. Only God intervenes to spare him from going out and fighting. In that battle, king Saul dies, opening up the way for David eventually to become king.
Even in the ever changing world in which we live, God is in charge. We can trust the unchanging God in the midst of human change.
Are you ready? Is it time for a change?