Stand up and fight

"I know your pride 

  and the insolence of your heart"

1 Samuel 17:28

I'm studying the chapter on David and Goliath in Bible study, and I'm finding myself furious ~ and not at Goliath. 

I know this story too well ~ probably you do, too ~ to still have much rage against Goliath.  He's a bully and a coward.  But I've known this since I was a child, and I know he's going to die for his crime of taunting and challenging the armies of the living God.  So I guess I don't react much anymore when I read of his bullying.

But today I found myself angry at someone I never really thought much about before ~ David's oldest brother, Eliab.  He, along with a couple of David's other brothers, had gone to battle, and had been hearing Goliath's taunting.  But he, along with everyone else in the army, was too scared of Goliath to do anything.

But then one day, on his father's orders, David came to the battlefield.  He was bringing food to his brothers, and he was just supposed to get word of his brothers, and go back and tell his father, but while he was there, he heard Goliath's daily challenge, and he was incensed:  "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?"

David had the reaction that every one of those men should have had.  But their fear was the only thing they could think about.   And that is where Eliab's words come from.  His fear.  He hears that David is indignant and brave, and it highlights his own failings.  He is scared and jealous.  And so he attacks David verbally, to put him on the defensive.  First he attacks David's motive for being there in the first place:  "Why did you come down here?"  But David's motive was obedience:  his father had told him to go there. 

Secondly, he accuses David of not caring for his sheep, of abandoning them in the wilderness.  But you know, and I know, and God knew, that David was matchless as a shepherd.   He had made sure his sheep were cared for before he went to the battlefield. 

And thirdly, Eliab judges David.  He comes to a conclusion on something about which he knows nothing:  David's heart.  "I know your pride and the insolence of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle."

You know, and I know, that David's motive ~ his heart ~ was pure.  God Himself said that David had a heart after God's own.  It doesn't get any more pure than that.  David wasn't perfect, but His heart belonged to God.  And Eliab had no business questioning that.

Stepping out to serve God annoys people sometimes.  It embarrasses them as it points out the fact that they are standing still.  Maybe it highlights their fear, or their disobedience.  And sometimes it causes them to lash out.  To accuse in you what they seem in themselves.

David's about to do something amazing.  Something no one else had the courage to do.  And he didn't let anyone's criticism talk him out of it.  Let us all have that much determination.

~ "The battle belongs to the Lord" ~

1 Samuel 17:47