Max Lucado (13 page)
Which indeed he had. The kid who had no legs to stand on has everything to live for. Why? Because he impressed David? Convinced David? Coerced David? No, Mephibosheth did nothing. A promise prompted David. The king is kind, not because the boy is deserving, but because the promise is enduring.
For further proof, follow the life of Mephibosheth. He beds down in the bastion and disappears from Scripture for fifteen years or so. He resurfaces amidst the drama of Absalom's rebellion.
Absalom, a rebellious curse of a kid, forces David to flee Jeru-salem. The king escapes in disgrace with only a few faithful friends. Guess who is numbered among them. Mephibosheth? I thought you'd think so. But he isn't. Ziba is. Ziba tells David that Mephibosheth has sided with the enemy. The story progresses, and Absalom perishes, and David returns to Jerusalem, where Mephibosheth gives the king another version of the story. He meets David wearing a ragged beard and dirty clothing. Ziba, he claims, abandoned him in Jerusalem and would not place him on a horse so he could travel.
Who's telling the truth? Ziba or Mephibosheth? One is lying. Which one? We don't know. We don't know because David never asks. He never asks, because it doesn't matter. If Mephibosheth tells
God sets the standard for covenant keeping.
the truth, he stays. If he lies, he stays. His place in the palace depends, not on his behavior, but on David's promise.
Why? Why is David so loyal? And how? How is David so loyal? Mephibosheth brings nothing and takes much. From whence does David quarry such resolve? Were we able to ask David how he ful-filled his giant-of-a-promise, he would take us from his story to God's story. God sets the standard for covenant keeping.
As Moses told the Israelites:
Know this: God, your God, is God indeed, a God you can depend upon. He keeps his covenant of loyal love with those who love him and observe his commandments for a thousand generations. (Deut. 7:9 MSG)
God makes and never breaks his promises. The Hebrew word for covenant,
beriyth,
means “a solemn agreement with binding force.”
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His irrevocable covenant runs like a scarlet thread through the tapestry of Scripture. Remember his promise to Noah?
“I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” (Gen. 9:11â13 NIV)
Every rainbow reminds us of God's covenant. Curiously, astronauts who've seen rainbows from outer space tell us they form a complete circle.
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God's promises are equally unbroken and unending.
Abraham can tell you about promises. God told this patriarch that counting the stars and counting his descendants would be equal challenges. To secure the oath, God had Abraham cut several animals in
God's irrevocable covenant runs like
a scarlet thread through the tapestry of Scripture.
half. To seal a covenant in the Ancient East, the promise-maker passed between a divided animal carcass, volunteering to meet the same fate if he broke his word.
As the sun went down and it became dark, Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses. So the Lord made a covenant with Abram that day and said, “I have given this land to your descendants, all the way from the border of Egypt to the great Euphrates River.” (Gen.15:17â18 NLT)
God takes promises seriously and seals them dramatically. Con-sider the case of Hosea. Seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, God commanded Hosea to marry a prostitute named Gomer. (If her profession didn't get you, her name would.) Still, Hosea obeyed. Gomer gave birth to three children, none of whom were Hosea's. Gomer abandoned Hosea for a life equivalent to a call girl at a strip club. Rock bottom came in the form of an auction pit, where men bid on her as a slave. Lesser men would have waved her off. Not Hosea. He jumped into the bidding and bought his wife and took her home again. Why? Here's Hosea's explanation.
Then God ordered me, “Start all over: Love your wife again,
your wife who's in bed with her latest boyfriend, your cheat-ing wife.
Love her the way I, God, love the Israelite people,
even as they flirt and party with every god that takes their fancy.”
I did it. I paid good money to get her back.
It cost me the price of a slave. (Hos. 3:1â2 msg)
Need a picture of our promise-keeping God? Look at Hosea buying back his wife. Look at the smoldering pot passing between the animals. Look at the rainbow. Or look at Mephibosheth. You've never introduced yourself as Mephibosheth from Lo Debar, but you could. Remember the details of his disaster? He was
⢠born rightful heir to the throne
⢠victimized by a fall
⢠left with halting feet in a foreign land
⢠where he lived under the threat of death.
That's your story! Were you not born as a child of the King? Have you not been left hobbling because of the stumble of Adam and Eve? Who among us hasn't meandered along the dry sand of Lo Debar?
But then came the palace messenger. A fourth-grade teacher, a high school buddy, an aunt, a television preacher. They came with big news and an awaiting limo. “You are not going to believe this,” they announced, “but the King of Israel has a place for you at the table. The place card is printed, and the chair is empty. He wants you in his family.”
Why? Because of your IQ? God needs no counsel.
Your retirement account? Not worth a dime to God.
Your organizational skills? Sure. The architect of orbits needs your advice.
Sorry, Mephibosheth. Your invitation has nothing to do with you
Your eternal life is covenant caused, covenant secured,
and covenant based.
and everything to do with God. He made a promise to give you eternal life: “God, who never lies, promised this eternal life before the world began” (Titus 1:2 God's Word).
Your eternal life is covenant caused, covenant secured, and covenant based. You can put Lo Debar in the rearview mirror for one reasonâGod keeps his promises. Shouldn't God's promise-keeping inspire yours?
Heaven knows you could use some inspiration. People can exhaust you. And there are times when all we can do is not enough. When a spouse chooses to leave, we cannot force him or her to stay. When a spouse abuses, we shouldn't stay. The best of love can go
When you love the unloving,
you get a glimpse of what God does for you.
unrequited. I don't for a moment intend to minimize the challenges some of you face. You're tired. You're angry. You're disappointed. This isn't the marriage you expected or the life you wanted. But looming in your past is a promise you made. May I urge you to do all you can to keep it? To give it one more try?
Why should you? So you can understand the depth of God's love.
When you love the unloving, you get a glimpse of what God does for you. When you keep the porch light on for the prodigal child, when you do what is right even though you have been done wrong, when you love the weak and the sick, you do what God does every single moment. Covenant-keeping enrolls you in the post-graduate school of God's love.
Is this why God has given you this challenge? When you love liars, cheaters, and heartbreakers, are you not doing what God has done for us? Pay attention to and take notes on your struggles. God invites you to understand his love.
He also wants you to illustrate it.
David did with Mephibosheth. David was a walking parable of God's loyalty. Hosea did the same with Gomer. He wardrobed divine devotion. My mother did with my father. I remember watching her care for him in his final months. ALS had sucked life from every muscle in his body. She did for him what mothers do for infants. She bathed, fed, and dressed him. She placed a hospital bed in the den of our house and made him her mission. If she complained, I never heard it. If she frowned, I never saw it. What I heard and saw was a covenant keeper. “This is what love does,” her actions announced as she powdered his body, shaved his face, and washed his sheets. She modeled the power of a promise kept.
God calls on you to do the same. Illustrate stubborn love. Incarnate fidelity. God is giving you a Mephibosheth-size chance to show your children and your neighbors what real love does.
Embrace it. Who knows? Someone may tell your story of loyalty to illustrate the loyalty of God.
One final thought. Remember the family portrait in David's palace? I doubt if David had one. But I think heaven might. Won't it be great to see your face in the picture? Sharing the frame with folks like Moses and Martha, Peter and Paul . . . there will be you and Mephibosheth.
He won't be the only one grinning.
Y
OU CAN CLIMB too high for your own good. It's possible to ascend too far, stand too tall, and elevate too much. Y
Linger too long at high altitudes, and two of your senses suffer. Your hearing dulls. It's hard to hear people when you are higher than they. Voices grow distant. Sentences seem muffled. And when you
You can climb too high for your own good.
are up there, your eyesight dims. It's hard to focus on people when you are so far above them. They appear so small. Little figures with no faces. You can hardly distinguish one from the other. They all look alike.
You don't hear them. You don't see them. You are above them.
Which is exactly where David is. He has never been higher. The wave of his success crests at age fifty. Israel is expanding. The country is prospering. In two decades on the throne, he has distinguished him-self as a warrior, musician, statesman, and king. His cabinet is strong, and his boundaries stretch for sixty thousand square miles. No defeats on the battlefield. No blemishes on his administration. Loved by the people. Served by the soldiers. Followed by the crowds. David is at an all-time high.
Quite a contrast to how we first found him in the Valley of Elah: kneeling at the brook, searching for five smooth stones. All others stood. The soldiers stood. Goliath stood. His brothers stood. The others were high; David was low, belly down in the lowest part of the valley. Never lower, yet never stronger.
Three decades later his situation is reversed. Never higher, yet never weaker. David stands at the highest point of his life, in the highest position in the kingdom, at the highest place in the cityâon the balcony overlooking Jerusalem.
He should be with his men, at battle, astride his steed and against his foe. But he isn't. He is at home.
In the spring, when the kings normally went out to war, David sent out Joab, his servants, and all the Israelites. They destroyed the Ammonites and attacked the city of Rabbah. But David stayed in Jerusalem. (2 Sam. 11:1 NCV)
It's springtime in Israel. The nights are warm, and the air is sweet. David has time on his hands, love on his mind, and people at his disposal.
His eyes fall upon a woman as she bathes. We'll always wonder if Bathsheba was bathing in a place where she shouldn't bathe, hop-ing David would look where he shouldn't look. We'll never know. But we know that he looks and likes what he sees. So he inquires about her. A servant returns with this information: “That woman is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam. She is the wife of Uriah the Hittite” (11:3 NCV).
The servant laces his information with a warning. He gives not only the woman's name but her marital status and the name of her husband. Why tell David she is married if not to caution him? And why give the husband's name unless David is familiar with it?
Odds are, David knew Uriah. The servant hopes to deftly dissuade the king. But David misses the hint. The next verse describes his first step down a greasy slope. “So David sent messengers to bring Bathsheba to him. When she came to him, he had sexual relations with her” (11:4 NCV).
David “sends” many times in this story. He
sends
Joab to battle (v. 1). He
sends
the servant to inquire about Bathsheba (v. 3). He
sends
for Bathsheba to have her come to him (v. 4). When David learns of her pregnancy, he
sends
word to Joab (v. 6) to
send
Uriah back to Jerusalem. David
sends
him to Bathsheba to rest, but Uriah is too noble. David opts to
send
Uriah back to a place in the battle where he is sure to be killed. Thinking his cover-up is complete, David
sends
for Bathsheba and marries her (v. 27).
We don't like this sending, demanding David. We prefer the pastoring David, caring for the flock; the dashing David, hiding from Saul; the worshiping David, penning psalms. We aren't prepared for the David who has lost control of his self-control, who sins as he sends.
What has happened to him? Simple. Altitude sickness. He's been too high too long. The thin air has messed with his senses. He can't hear as he used to. He can't hear the warnings of the servant or the voice of his conscience. Nor can he hear his Lord. The pinnacle has
Linger too long at high altitudes,
and your hearing dulls and your eyesight dims.
dulled his ears and blinded his eyes. Did David see Bathsheba? No. He saw Bathsheba bathing. He saw Bathsheba's body and Bathsheba's curves. He saw Bathsheba, the conquest. But did he see Bathsheba, the human being? The wife of Uriah? The daughter of Israel? The creation of God? No. David had lost his vision. Too long at the top will do that to you. Too many hours in the bright sun and thin air leaves you breathless and dizzy.
Of course, who among us could ever ascend as high as David? Who among us is a finger snap away from a rendezvous with any-one we choose? Presidents and kings might send people to do their bidding; we're lucky to send out for Chinese food. We don't have that kind of clout.