I Samuel 24:7 So David stayed his servants with these words, and suffered them not to rise against Saul. But Saul rose up out of the cave, and went on his way.
Francis Bacon supposedly said, “Wise men make more opportunities than they find.” Sometimes we are sitting around waiting for opportunity to knock when we should be going out looking for opportunity. I think there is some truth to that. However, we sometimes think we have great opportunities when what we are actually looking at is a test from God.
You see, an opportunity is a favorable junction of circumstances. I want something, and there are circumstances that just line up for me to get what I want. It can mean a good chance to advance or progress. If I want to advance myself, there are a number of things I can do that would not be right but would result in something I want.
A test, on the other hand, is an ordeal required as proof of conformity to a set of beliefs. So sometimes I am looking at what sometimes seems like an opportunity to advance myself when what is actually before me is a test to see what is important to me. An opportunity presents favorable conditions, but a test reveals what is truly favorable, what favorable actually is.
Sometimes as believers we may say, “I just feel like God is leading me to do thus and so.” That may be well and true, but sometimes we are just trying to justify our own feelings by invoking God. That is not right. So how do I know when God is leading and when I merely have a favorable set of conditions for myself?
Well, God’s Word discerns between the opportunity and the test. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God…is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” In I Samuel 23 we find King Saul pursuing David and wanting to kill him because of jealous rage. In verse 7 it was told Saul that “David was come to Keilah, And Saul said, God hath delivered him into my hand.” He thought to himself, “What a golden opportunity. I want to progress myself. I want to kill David. David is trapped. God has given this to me.” Did God want Saul to kill David? No! So was this an opportunity from God? No!
Later on in I Samuel 24:4, David had the drop on Saul and could have killed him. David’s men said, “Behold the day of which the LORD said unto thee, Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand, that thou mayest do to him as it shall seem good unto thee.” They seemed to say, “God said you could kill Saul.” God had never said any such thing. God had said David would be the next king, and there were people giving spiritual-sounding counsel to David which went against God’s words to David. God’s words were, “You will be king.” That did not justify David’s killing of Saul. So, David said, “The LORD forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the LORD’s anointed.” That required patience and faith on David’s part. Verse 7 says, “So, David stayed his servants with these words.”
The long and short of it is that Saul chose to advance himself because he saw an opportunity. David chose to follow God because he saw a test. The result of that is that God advanced David. In verse 20 when David had left his enemy to God’s hand, he let God be judge, plead his cause, and deliver him. Saul was smitten, although not changed. Saul realized that David had done the right thing when David could have killed him. Saul says in verse 20, “And now, behold, I know well that thou shalt surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in thine hand.”
Today, it is good for us to look for opportunities, but it is also worthy that we realize that sometimes when favorable conditions present themselves, it may be a test by God to see what we believe favorable actually means.