I Samuel 18:30 Then the princes of the Philistines went forth: and it came to pass, after they went forth, that David behaved himself more wisely than all the servants of Saul; so that his name was much set by.
Maybe you have seen news stories like the one about the teenager who totaled his super car. You can go from very, very high to very, very low, very quickly. If you are nineteen and have a super car, you probably have a lot of friends who just came out of the woodwork. You are a great guy! If you total that car and your face is in the news about having destroyed such a car, you come pretty low, pretty quickly. We all have highs and lows in our lives. The fact of the matter is that your life is not going to be defined by what happens to you, whether it is a high or a low, whether it is everyone loving you or everyone hating you. Your life is defined by how your respond. I know that sounds clichéd, but it is the truth.
In I Samuel 18, you find David transitioning from shepherd and son to warrior, courtier, and king. For many years David had the same routine every day. He was a shepherd. He would get up, feed the sheep, watch the sheep, and go to bed. Then, he would get up, feed the sheep, watch the sheep, and go to bed. That all changed with the defeat of Goliath. In I Samuel 18 you find both a high and a low in David’s life.
For instance, when it comes to love, there were a lot of people who just came to love David. In the first four verses of chapter 18, Prince Jonathan loved David and their friendship grew. In verse 16, both Israel and Judah loved David. He was a leader even then. In verse 20, Princess Michal, Saul’s daughter, loved David. You have all this love for David.
Both good things and bad things can test our character, but sometimes we respond more nobly when bad things happen to us because we know we are not as bad as people think we are. However, when good things happen, we kind of assume that we are as good as people think we are. The Bible tells us in the Proverbs that praise is like a mirror, our response to it shows us ourselves.
On the opposite end you have hatred. In verses 9 and 11 the Bible tells us that Saul came to hate David. He was jealous of David and tried to kill him on a couple of occasions.
But, the theme and point of I Samuel 18 is neither love nor hate, high nor low, but the way David responded. In verse 30, the Bible tells us why this chapter is here when it says, “Then the princes of the Philistines went forth: and it came to pass, after they went forth, that David behaved himself more wisely than all the servants of Saul; so that his name was much set by.” The important thing here is not so much that he had a reputation as it is that he behaved himself in a certain way. Wisdom is not what you know, it is what you do with what you know. It is how well you live and how well you behave. What David shows us is that whether he was loved or hated, both of which are a test of character, David was a man who responded in wisdom.
Your life is not defined so much by what happens to you as it is defined by how you respond. That is a good thing because that means that even if a lot of bad things happen to you and to me, it does not mean that our lives are over. But, it does mean that there is a certain amount of agency and responsibility. We are not just victims. We are agents that have the choice of how we are going to respond.
David, a shepherd. David, a king. David loved. David hated. David, a man who in I Samuel 18 responded to life wisely. I don’t know what your life has been to this point, the highs or the lows, but I do know that you have the responsibility and the grace, if you seek it, to have God’s wisdom for y