Pilgrimage by Lynn Austin Read Free Book Online

Wouldn’t logic tell David to fight, winning the promised kingdom through a military victory the way countless other leaders had come to power? Instead, David hid in a cave and waited for God to give him the throne. To a celebrated warrior, running and hiding must have felt cowardly. Waiting is always harder than doing something.
    David had a lot of time to talk with God while hiding here. The Engedi oasis is peaceful, with water gurgling and birds twittering and leaves rustling in the wind. He composed someof his most poignant psalms, revealing his struggles to trust in God, psalms that still offer strength and hope today in times of change. Reading Psalm 57, written during this time in David’s life, I can hear his impatience—and maybe just a twinge of self-pity. Won’t this pursuit ever end? I’m tired of it! Tired of living in a damp, sunless cave. I’m supposed to be the king. David poured out his sorrow, but even when tempted to feel sorry for himself, he always ended his psalms with hope and trust. “For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies” (v. 10). David managed to take his eyes off his bleak situation and look up to God, trusting His timing.
    These are lessons I want to grasp, yet the only way to learn them is to be deprived of my own resources: to hunger and thirst, to be uncomfortable, to feel pursued and unjustly wronged. It might even mean suffering through a catastrophic change, like Lot’s daughters did, and questioning why God would allow this to happen. It might mean waiting for God’s promises, wrestling with unanswered prayer. And waiting some more.
    One day, high in his oasis hideaway, David was given an opportunity to change his miserable situation. King Saul left his army at the base of the trail and climbed up to the cave alone to relieve himself. “This is a God-given opportunity!” David’s men must have whispered to him from their hiding place in the shadows. “You can kill Saul and end our misery and exile!” Was God finally answering his prayers?
    David crept toward his enemy, but instead of killing Saul, he cut off the corner of his garment, then scurried back into the darkness. The Torah required all Jewish men to sew blue tassels on the corners of their garments as daily remindersof God’s commandments. One of those commandments was “Thou shall not kill,” yet Saul was seeking to kill David without a just cause, using his kingly power and Israel’s army to do it. By cutting off Saul’s fringes, David sent Saul a clear message: You’re breaking God’s commandments. And perhaps the tassels reminded David of his obligation to obey God, as well. David could have killed Saul but he didn’t. He refused to succumb to self-pity and take matters into his own hands as Lot’s daughters had. God would put David on the throne when the time was right. David didn’t see Saul’s vulnerability as an answer to prayer but as a temptation to sin.
    Imagine the angry whispering and wrestling in the back of that cave when David returned with a handful of tassels instead of Saul’s head. It must have taken quite a struggle for David to restrain his men from doing what he had refused to do. David had sworn an oath of allegiance to Saul before God, and he refused to break that oath or murder a defenseless man. When we truly trust God, we’re able to extend His grace, even to people like Saul who don’t deserve it. Vengeance belongs to God.
    After King Saul returned to his waiting army, David strode to the mouth of the cave and stood where Saul and his men could see him. He might have been within range of their sharpshooters’ arrows, but David wasn’t afraid. If God’s promises were true and he was destined to be king, then he need “not fear . . . the arrow that flies by day” (Psalm 91:5). David shouted down to Saul, “I cut off the corner of your robe but did not kill you. Now understand and recognize that I am not guilty of