When We Get Scared
1 Samuel 21
1 Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David trembling and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?”
2 And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place.
3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.”
4 And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread—if the young men have kept themselves from women.”
5 And David answered the priest, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?”
6 So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.
7 Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord. His name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul’s herdsmen.
8 Then David said to Ahimelech, “Then have you not here a spear or a sword at hand? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s business required haste.”
9 And the priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in the Valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take it, for there is none but that here.” And David said, “There is none like that; give it to me.”
10 And David rose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish the king of Gath.
11 And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances, ‘Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands’?”
12 And David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath.
13 So he changed his behavior before them and pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard.
14 Then Achish said to his servants, “Behold, you see the man is mad. Why then have you brought him to me? 15 Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?”
Fear does crazy things to a person. Fear will drive us to make decisions rashly and irrationally. Fear will cause us to do things that are out of character. Or wait. Does fear just amp up the emotions enough to cause us to act at our very basic level? Our true character might be what actually show when we are afraid.
In our story for today, we see something we haven’t really seen much of in David’s story. He is afraid. Now don’t get me wrong. His fear is not without reason. Saul’s threats are serious and if he can end David’s life, he’s going to do it. So David is afraid and runs to Gath. Where is Gath? It is the capital of the Philistines! David’s enemies look better to him than Saul at this point. During these first few weeks of his 10 years of running, we see David do something we really haven’t seen yet – he lies, twice. First he lies to Ahimelech the priest as to his reason for being in Nob (north and east of Jerusalem), securing from Ahimelech food meant for priests and the sword of Goliath. David is well known in the country and passing himself off as an emissary of the king was easy. Then, when David gets to Gath, he decides that portraying himself as insane will cause Achish the king to give him wide clearance. It works! Now just because it works is not a good reason to applaud David’s lies. This propensity to lie shows us our first chink in David’s character. Instead of trusting in the God who helped him kill countless Philistines, not to mention Goliath, David resorts to lies to protect himself when in danger. All trust flees and dependence upon himself steps up to take its place. While this is disappointing, we can certainly empathize.
When you have faced your most fearful times, what squeezes out of you? What lies at your core that is exposed as you pass through difficulties? Think upon those darker days when you were afraid or troubled. The place that you turned for peace and help will reveal something critical about your trust level in God. While David’s lies are disappointing they certainly can be forgiven by a merciful God (and by us, who are enjoying his story.) We all stumble in times of stress. But this incident reminds us to check our own center and see if it is God who resides there, or a defiant version of ourselves that we count when times are tough. And just because we fail doesn’t mean we are doomed. Those failures are forgiven in the blood of Jesus and He is quick to restore us to His side and take us under the shadow of His wing, where true peace and safety are found.
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