“Which of you desires life, and covets many days to enjoy good?” (Psalm 34:12)
When King Saul pursued David, over 400 fugitives joined him hiding out in caves. (I Samuel 22) They were in debt, in distress and discontent. Psalm 34 gives us little summaries of sermons David preached to the fugitives (viewed as failures in their times) that turned them into his mighty men.
He began by challenging them with questions like: “How many of you want to live? How long do you want to live? Do you want to live so you may see the good?” When asked how long we want to live we almost never give a specific number of years, months, weeks and days. We just answer, “Many!”
In that culture “seeing the good” was an expression that meant a person was convinced there was something good in this life and they were going to find it. David preached that God is the good thing to seek. After telling them about the most humiliating and frightening experience of his life, his great battle cry to them was: “Magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt God’s name together!” (v. 3)
David identified with the weaknesses of these failures. He preached that the greater their weakness the more they exalted the name of God when God used them. Finding the strength of God in their weakness made them David’s mighty men God used in mighty ways.
Have you learned how to find God’s strength in your weakness? Have you discovered how the greater your weaknesses – the more you can magnify God?
Dick Woodward, 21 March 2013
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