1 Samuel 24:12 May the Lord judge between you and me. And may the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you.
Have you ever been in a situation where you wanted justice so badly that you almost carried it out yourself? We see this knee-jerk reaction happening right now in our country. Thousands are protesting without knowing the facts. Their emotions have been spun up by the company they are keeping.
Knee-jerk emotional reactions have been part of humanity since the Fall. Cain’s murder of his brother shows the power of disappointment fully unleashed. Can you imagine his parents at that moment! This is the feeling of thousands of parents every year as senseless killings happen in our big cities.
But there is an alternative. Our text gives us an example of the alternative. We can choose to not take justice into our hand and into our timing.
David has been pursued by King Saul. Saul wants David dead because of the company he keeps. Saul has walked away from the LORD and has listened to his emotions. His jealousy of David’s fame in battle started the downward spiral of Saul’s rage. Jealousy has led to many murders down through the millennia.
But David takes a different tact. He is willing to allow the LORD’s timing to take over. He doesn’t feel the need to take justice into his own hands, or at least he is able to curb is impulses. He doesn’t act even when he is urged by his companions to act.
He is hiding in a cave and at that moment Saul chooses his cave to go to the bathroom. I guess there weren’t any porte-potties placed along the wilderness path! David is in the back of the cave hiding, and Saul is doing his business!
David’s companions whisper to David and tell him this is the perfect time to kill Saul, after all, Saul is trying to kill him. But instead of heeding their advice, David simply cuts a small part of Saul garment and takes it for his own. David could have just as easily cut the throat of the unsuspecting Saul, but he didn’t.
Saul leaves the cave and David follows. The cut piece of robe is displayed and Saul leaves David alone.
It is in this revealing of the not-chosen opportunity to murder that David speaks our text today. David expresses the faith that kept him from killing Saul. David was willing to place his own fate in the LORD’s hand.
David wanted justice, but justice in the LORD’s timing and way, not his own. Perhaps David recognized the burden of war deaths that he already carried in himself, and he didn’t want any unnecessary additions to his catalog of nightmares! He had killed before. Did he really want the burden of killing the King on his conscience?
Notice that David is willing to let the LORD be in charge. But he also is honest about the “wrongs” Saul had done to him. He wants those wrongs confessed and paid for by Saul. He doesn’t want them to go unrecognized and acknowledged.
Too often we want justice on our timing, in our way. But we need to be willing to put it in the LORD’s hands and then wait patiently. I think it is often the patient part that gets most of us. We don’t like waiting, do we!
Are we willing to let go and allow the LORD to handle the injustices that have been perpetrated on us? Are we willing to remove our hands from the steering wheel and allow the LORD to be in control?
The Arnold Journey 