Do you know what it’s like to be hunted? As children, we played hide and seek. One person covered his eyes while the rest of us ran and hid: up in a tree, on the other side of the house, behind the rocks, while one person set out looking for the rest of us. It was more fun hiding, but then, no one’s life was at stake.
I remember my mother looking for her needle, searching. She was mending clothes and the needle had fallen off the thread. She carefully stood up, and gently swept her dress with her hand, sweeping, sweeping, then getting down on her hands and knees, peering, searching, using the light as it came across the floor until she spied it and with a short shout, held it up triumphantly. She had captured her prize! When I’ve hunted quail, I’ve moved through meadows and fields, searching until the birds are spooked into flight ahead of us. We watch where they land and then the hunt is on. Some of us go wide on one side, some on the other until they are far out ahead of the quail. The rest of us then walk forward in a line. When the birds are flushed again, the hunters out ahead have a shot with their arrows. My whole life, I’ve hunted, but I’ve always hunted things. Things are meant to be hunted, not people! Not me. What did I do to become the prey, hunted down like a bird, or a crippled dog?
I’m the one, remember, who took up the giant’s challenge. I’m the one who saved all Israel that day. I didn’t do it just for money or glory. I did it for God’s glory. God was being challenged out on that battlefield. Every day, and day after day Goliath stepped forward and taunted us. “Come out and fight me,” he would roar out to us, “if any one of you is a real warrior.” That wasn’t the end of his speech. No, no, he wasn’t finished yet. He was just getting started. “Which one of you is a man? No one comes out to face me? You cowards, you chickens, you worthless scum. Where is your god to protect you? Where is your Yahweh? Afraid your god won’t help? Maybe your god can’t help. Maybe your god is as weak and cowardly as the rest of you.” Then, Goliath would throw back his head and laugh. He’d laugh at us. He’d laugh at God. How dare he! I was so mad, I volunteered to go. I couldn’t stand to hear him laugh any more…. Maybe I wasn’t thinking, but I just figured God wouldn’t stand for it either. See, I don’t think it would have made a difference who would have accepted Goliath’s challenge. Our God was going to get the victory. God just needed someone to show up and go out. And, that’s what happened. God used me, a young teenage shepherd with a slingshot, against all that armor and muscle. What a feeling to do something for God that God used!
It was a great victory that day, over the whole Philistine army. I was hoisted on the shoulders of soldiers I had never seen before. Everyone was cheering – and shouting to God at the top of their lungs. It was amazing. They brought me to the king. He nodded at me. The men lowered me down from their shoulders and I knelt in front of him. He thanked me, in front of everyone, for the great deed that I had done. Right there, he commissioned me as an officer in the army. Soon after, I started commanding troops. I remember the first battle. It wasn’t like fighting Goliath. Two masses of soldiers come running at each other, crashing into each other. Half the soldiers in the first five rows died in the first seconds. Such bravery. They just threw themselves at the enemy lines. Then, the swords start swinging and people start falling all around me. I felt a rush of adrenaline I had never felt before. Something came over me and I started in, too, swinging and cutting. Then, almost before I knew it, it was over. We had broken their ranks and they were running away.
And, that’s the way it kept going. I would receive my orders. I would carry them out. It seems like each time we were victorious, walking again and again down the center street of the city with the people lining up to welcome us back and cheer our success. They’d call out my name, too. Me? Who am I? I and my family are not known in Israel. We’re not wealthy. We’re not important people. But, God chose me. The prophet Samuel anointed me with oil and declared that I would be the next king of Israel. Me, just little old me. I figured I’ll let God decide when and if that will happen. I just contented myself with doing what I’m told, fighting the king’s battles and protecting our land.
Then, that evening happened. I was having dinner at the king’s long table with other court officials. In the middle of the dinner, Saul, without warning, grasped the spear that always leaned against the wall by his chair and threw it at me. He threw it; at me! What had I done? Fortunately, I caught a glimpse of the spear in his hand as he drew back to throw it, so I could dodged it just in time. It flew past me so close I could hear it and stuck in the wall on the other side of the room. That was a spear with anger behind it. I ran out of there as fast as I could and I’ve been running since. I’ve never disobeyed the king. I never plotted against the king. I have never done anything to rouse his anger. His son Jonathan and I are best friends! But Saul is out to get me. He’s out to hunt me down.
Do you know what it’s like to be hunted? There is no place that is safe, not for long. You never know if someone seen you. Maybe they will report where you are. Even now, his troops may be mounting up and moving out to capture us. I’ll tell you, when you are running, you never know what the hunter knows. It’s the unknown that drives the fear.
In the darkness, sleep comes hard. What’s that sound? Is it the jingle of a horse’s bridle? The unsheathing of a sword just before an attack? That’s why we keep moving. We can’t afford to; someone may see us and report us to Saul. It’s exhausting to run. Hiding gets into your bones and saps all the energy. We just keep moving, going from one place to the next.
I decided the best place to go was the region south of Jerusalem. It was a barren area of the country. Rocks, hills, not a lot of water, but it’s the territory I grew up in. I knew the place. Saul didn’t. Besides, the people who live here are part of my tribe of Judah. They know me. They wouldn’t turn me in to Saul, not their own flesh and blood.
I had moved our camp south of Jeshimon, not too far from Hesbron. There was a spring of water there that was enough for me and my men, about 600 of us. It was a good spot, desolate, far away from towns, nothing but mountains. I thought we were safe for awhile. What I didn’t know is that some people from the town of Ziph were in the area, trying to find food for a small flock of sheep. I don’t know what the reward was for me, but they went fast to Saul and told him where our camp was. My own people betrayed me. Rather than having to search the whole country for me, Saul now knew the area where I was. He had targeted my location and could box me in. If it wasn’t for my own scouts, he would have surrounded our camp and cut us all down. As it was, we didn’t have much time to get out of there. We left the heavy equipment and fled with what we could carry. Not sense in standing and fighting. Saul had too many troops. Away we went in quick step. Every so often, one of my scouts would race back and tell me how far away the king was. At first it was half an hour, then 20 minutes, then 10 and we could see the dust rising behind us from his soldiers. We kept going, but we were tired. Tired from lack of sleep, little food and the forced pace we kept. No water in the hot wilderness. We tried going faster, but we couldn’t. It was too much. And, Saul sensing like a hunter that his prey is tiring, urged his troops to close the gap. The distance between us kept shrinking. Panting, we came to the base of a mountain with a fork in the road. Which way to go? I choose left. We had just rounded the first corner of the mountain when Saul and his troops came to the same fork. They hadn’t quite seen us. They chose to go right.
Now the mountain was between us, which bought us some time. As we went along, I kept scanning, probing for some way off of that road; otherwise, it would only bring us right back to Saul, but there was no other way, no other roads, no cuts in the steep mountains. It was only a matter of time. I looked at the men with me as we marched along. Each step they took was leading them one step closer to certain death at the hands of Saul’s soldiers, and they knew it. I looked at them as we marched along. I looked at their eyes. What I saw was fear; fear of dying. When fear and death mingle, a man gets stripped down to the core of his being and I suddenly realized – these men who had been my companions – they were not going to give their lives for me. I could tell it in how they looked away from me when our eyes met. They were not going to fightw. In the panic that was overwhelming them, they decided I was not worth their lives. They would give me up to Saul. They would give me up to Saul and spare their lives. And me? Saul would kill me. The only question was whether it would be a quick or lingering death.
Up ahead, the end of the mountain was in sight. Surely Saul was just around the end. The men with me started falling back bit by bit, putting space between them and me, as if they were separating themselves from a cow to be sacrificed on the altar. The bend in the road came closer. “Is this how it will end,” I thought? “Here, in this God-forsaken wilderness? Alone? Is this all there is to my life?” The bend was looming up ahead. We came around to the front of the mountain and saw – nothing. No one in sight. I stared blankly down that road, my sword still in its sheath, resigned to meet my fate at the hands of Saul, waiting for him and his soldiers to surround us. What would that be like?
They told me later that our scout came back only a few minutes later. To me it seemed an eternity that I was staring down that road at my own death. The scout reported that Saul had turned around. He was not pursuing us. Philistines were raiding towns in Israel and they needed Saul’s help. As king, he had to turn and help them. It was over, at least for now.
That was eight days ago, and I still wonder about that day. What if Saul had chosen to go left at the foot of the mountain? He would have caught up to us and killed us before the messenger arrived to tell him about the Philistine raid. Or, what if it had been a different day and there was no enemy raid to pull Saul off of us. I would have been dead. What are the chances that everything lined up to spare my life: the place, the mountain, going left rather than right, Saul going right rather than left, the Philistines deciding to raid on that day, a messenger reaching Saul just in time? It was God who rescued me. I don’t find any other explanation. It couldn’t all have lined up like that unless God was in it. Sometimes, I even think God put that mountain there to keep Saul away. I’ve renamed the mountain, Sela Hammahlekoth, the rock of escape.
Staring at my own death is a strange thing. You would think it would make me more afraid, but it’s the opposite. I feel freer; not as closed in by fear. I guess coming to the edge of death to be yanked out by God gives me a firmer trust in God. I’m not saying I know God will always rescue me. I don’t know what God will do. I can’t predict the outcome of my life, but I do know one thing, I can trust in God. There’s nothing God can’t do. I’m ready to believe that God can do anything. Anything! Since I don’t know what God will do, I’ll let him worry about the outcome and I’ll trust that God will bring about what needs to happen. Life or death, from now on, I’m placing my confidence in God. I’m going to let God be God! I’ll let God be God.