1 Samuel 29:6-11: a reflection

6Then Achish called David and said to him, “As the LORD lives, you have been upright, and your going out and your coming in with me in the army is good in my sight; for I have not found evil in you since the day of your coming to me to this day. Nevertheless, the lords don’t favor you. 7Therefore now return, and go in peace, that you not displease the lords of the Philistines.” 8David said to Achish, “But what have I done? What have you found in your servant so long as I have been before you to this day, that I may not go and fight against the enemies of my lord the king?” 9Achish answered David, “I know that you are good in my sight, as an angel of God. Notwithstanding, the princes of the Philistines have said, ‘He shall not go up with us to the battle.’ 10Therefore now rise up early in the morning with the servants of your lord who have come with you; and as soon as you are up early in the morning and have light, depart.” 11So David rose up early, he and his men, to depart in the morning, to return into the land of the Philistines; and the Philistines went up to Jezreel.

David has backed himself into a terrible corner. Fleeing Saul, he has taken refuge among the Philistines, and now the Philistines are marching to war against Israel, David's own people, and David is expected to fight alongside them, against his own nation. It is an impossible position, one of his own making. And then he is rescued from it, though not in a way that looks like rescue.

The Philistine commanders do not trust David; they fear he will turn on them in battle, so they insist he be sent home. Achish reluctantly tells David to leave: you are honest in my eyes, but the lords do not favor you; go back. To David it may have felt like rejection, being distrusted, dismissed, sent away. But it was deliverance. Their suspicion spared him from having to raise his sword against Israel. God used the Philistines' distrust to pull David out of the corner he had painted himself into.

There is quiet reassurance in this. Sometimes we get ourselves into impossible positions, and God's rescue arrives disguised as something unwelcome, a door closing, a rejection, being passed over or sent away. What feels like a slight may be God extracting you from a corner you could not have gotten out of on your own. When a door shuts in a way that stings, consider that God may be sparing you something worse. His providence often rescues us through what does not feel like mercy at the time.

Lord, sometimes your rescue comes disguised as rejection, a door closing, a dismissal that stings. When I have backed myself into an impossible corner, help me trust that you can extract me even through unwelcome circumstances, and that what feels like a slight may be your mercy sparing me something worse.