Page 36 - Empowering Missional Artists - Jim Mills.pdf

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outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (I Samuel 16:7c) When David walked

into the room, God spoke to Samuel’s listening heart and said, “Arise anoint him, for this is he.”

(I Samuel 16:12) When Samuel obediently poured the anointing oil on him, “the Spirit of the Lord

came mightily upon David from that day forward.” David was not only announced and anointed

king ceremonially by the holy prophet of Israel, but the Spirit of God came mightily upon him.

What form that took, the scripture does not say. Spiritually, he possessed God’s scepter to rule,

but where did he go and what did he then do as the freshly anointed king? He went back to the

sheep. He continued to serve his father. (I Samuel 16:19) God found in David, a son and a

willing servant, who simply did that which was in his hand to do: love and serve his earthy father.

This action revealed something God found in David’s heart and God was the only one who truly

had eyes to see this in him.

In a sermon once a pastor recalled looking up in the sky and seeing a small prop-plane fly

over. When he first saw the plane, it was some distance away, but he could see that it was

pulling a large banner, longer actually than the plane itself. As the plane came closer, he could

make out the words that read: “David and Bathsheba.” It was an advertisement for a nightclub in

the city. The minister shook his head and simply said, “If David had only known that thousands

of years later, he would be remembered more for his folly than anything else, then he might have

not done what he did.” This chapter in David’s life begs the question, how could a man after

God’s heart transgress as he did?

Since the story is reasonably well known, I will forego going into the details, but there is

one important incident leading up to his undoing that is important for leaders to think about. In

the scriptural account it says, “Then it happened in the spring when kings go out to battle, that

David sent Joab and his servants” (2 Samuel 11:1). David did not go to war as was the

responsibility and custom of the kings, he abdicated his responsibility and was consequentially in

the wrong place at the wrong time.