When is a good thing not a good thing?

"David thought to himself"

1 Samuel 27:1

Should you or shouldn't you?

Should you have, or should you haven't?

Great idea, or foolishness?

Hard to tell sometimes.  Even afterwards.  Was that a good thing?  Or was that a mistake?

Chapter 27 of 1 Samuel starts off with bad news ~ "David thought to himself..."  David doesn't do as well when he thinks for himself.  {Which of us, does, though...} In the New King James it says, "David said in his heart..."  But Jeremiah 17:9 says that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.  So David would have been better off asking God what to do.   

At the end of chapter 26, Saul had apologized for accusing and pursuing David.  "I have sinned," he said.  "Return, my son... I will harm you no more. Indeed I have played the fool."

Fortunately, David was too wise to remain in a place vulnerable to King Saul.

But unfortunately, David relied on his own scheming, and decided the safest place to hide from Saul was with the Philistines.  "There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape to the land of the Philistines; and Saul will despair of me, to seek me anymore."

Fortunately, it worked.  Saul stopped pursuing David.

Unfortunately, even though he was now safe from Saul, David had to figure out how to protect himself from his enemies, the Philistines, while living among them.  So he and his men went out on raids.  And this was the tricky part:  He was raiding the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, and the Amalekites {say those five times fast}, all of whom were nations that were supposed to have been uprooted by the Israelites when they took possession of the Promised Land.   So they were enemies of Israel.

Fortunately, those nations were all in the area of the tribe of Judah, so David was able to convince Achish, the commander of the Philistines, that he was raiding his own people.

Unfortunately, he was so effective at convincing Achish that he was loyal to him, that Achish wanted to make him an honorary Philistine.  And all of a sudden, David's lies had trapped him.  We can't know if David would have fought with Achish.  Either he was prepared to, or he was putting on a pretty good show.  I think we can judge, from all we know of David, that he would not have turned on his own people.  But he was in a bit of a pickle.

Fortunately, God intervened.  One of the great things about reading about Bible heroes in trouble, is watching how God works through a variety of circumstances and people to save His children.  In this case, He worked through the Philistine commanders.  They had heard of David, and they didn't trust him.  They didn't want him behind them.  Which I think was wise of them.  At that point, David and his men went on their way, ending the charade of trying to pretend they were on the same team as the "bad" guys.

So what do you think?

David was serving his people by raiding their enemies and obtaining spoils for his people.  But he's lying to do it.  Is a good thing a good thing if you have to do a bad thing to do the good thing?

I think not.

The ends don't justify the means with God.  He cares about the end, but He cares about the means, too.

He's got a better way than our way.  Just ask Him.

~ " 'My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways My ways,'

says the Lord" ~

Isaiah 55:8