II Samuel 9:1 And David said, Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul, that I may shew him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?
I’ve been serving here at the Bill Rice Ranch for many years. When I first started at the Ranch, I was among the youngest people on staff. Now, years later, I am older than most of the people that serve with me. It is amazing to see. Sometimes you don’t have a certain perspective until you’ve been around a little while, and I’m starting to get a new perspective. One thing I’ve learned is that kindness is your friend in the long run.
When I first knew many of the people who are serving with us now, they were high school or college help in the summers, and now they are crucial. They are helping to make the Ranch run. So, kindness really is important. There is a time before you hit your prime that no one knows you. And should you live a full life, there will come a time when people may not remember you as well as they should. That is one of the reasons why kindness is your friend in the long run.
II Samuel 9 is the story of David having come to power. He had established a capitol. He had a palace. Unfortunately, he had a harem. He had defeated many enemies. Verse 1 says, “And David said, Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul.” That, of course, was the previous king who tried to kill David. Why was he enquiring? The verse continues, “That I may shew him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”
Here is an interesting thing. Back when David was young and Saul was in power, Saul was trying to kill David. Saul’s son Jonathan had made a covenant with David because they were friends, and the covenant was that when David became king, he would deal kindly with Jonathan’s family. That was an act of faith on Jonathan’s part. Jonathan was protecting a man who had a bounty on his head, who was not in power. Now, these many years later, Jonathan was gone. David was in power, and David was showing kindness to the son of Jonathan just as the son of Saul, Jonathan, had shown kindness unto David when David had not been in power. So, kindness is your friend in the long run.
I’m not saying that your friend is kind. That may be true, but I’m saying that kindness itself as an entity is your friend in the long run. Here is Jonathan with apparently nothing to gain by being David’s friend when they were both young, whose family was now benefiting because of David’s memory of Jonathan’s kindness. Kindness is important because the tables do turn.
In verse 7 David said to Mephibosheth, “Fear not: for I will surely shew thee kindness for Jonathan thy father’s sake.” Why did David say, “Fear not”? It was because at that time when a new government or king came to power, the first thing they did was to kill off all the old government and the old king and his family. So, Mephibosheth may well have assumed that David meant him ill when David actually meant him kindness.
Mephibosheth basically said to David, “Who am I? I’m just a dead dog. I’m nothing. Why are you being so kind to me?” It strikes me that that is essentially what David had said to Mephibosheth’s grandfather, King Saul, when David was the young man. He had said, “Who am I? I am just a dog. Why would I be the king’s son-in-law?” This was before the rift between Saul and David. Who benefited from the covenant that Jonathan had made with David back when Jonathan was more in power and David was not? The answer is that in the long run it was Jonathan’s family.
The word kindness here means “goodness” and also has the idea of “faithfulness.” So, David was simply being faithful to the memory of someone who had shown him kindness.
Kindness is a rare commodity. It is more frequently misunderstood than it is understood. David said to Mephibosheth, “Fear not,” because it was Mephibosheth’s working assumption that the only reason the king would be sending him messages was to harm him, but David really meant him kindness.
In the next chapter, David showed kindness to a neighboring king because of the kindness the king’s father had shown to David when David was a young man. The current king mistook David’s messengers of comfort for spies and a war was started. Misunderstanding is more natural than understanding when it comes to kindness.
Then, kindness is a reminder to each of us that none of us are self-made. Don’t forget the kindness of other people. David was king, in power with a capitol and a palace. David was strong, yet it would have been foolish for David to have thought he had come to that place because of how great he was. God had ordained David as king. People like Jonathan had kept David alive when he easily could have been killed.
Maybe you are before your prime, past your prime, or in the middle of your prime in the eyes of people. No matter the case, kindness is your friend in the long run. That is something we learn from David and Jonathan and can use in our lives today.