Circumstantial Dialogue

God speaks to us through our circumstances. That was made loud and clear this past couple of days. I’ve been praying that God would reveal to me what he wants me to do with the rest of my life. A friend of mine told me that I should focus more on my relationship with God and that my calling would flow out of that. Great advise!

Like most humans, I struggle with pride. During a Bible study this past week one of my friends suggested we study King David.

Shortly after that, some associates of mine at work inadvertently failed to do something for one of our clients that reflected badly on me. I was upset, no more like incensed. Why, pride!

So I started work on our Bible study about David in 1st Samuel where it talks about David and his relationship with King Saul and one of the things that made David a man after Gods own heart was his lack of pride. That and he was extremely comfortable in his own skin and did not easily get his feelings hurt.

For example, after killing Goliath and becoming hugely popular with the King’s court and all the people of the land to the point that women in “all the cities of Israel ” we’re singing and dancing in his honor, he was still humble enough to play music to soothe King Saul’s paranoia, even though he is trying to kill David. Yet he does not seek revenge but trusted that God would work it all out.

Even in the face of that, when King Saul in a moment of clarity offers his first born daughter to be David’s bride, his first thought is I’m not good enough to be the son-in-law of the king. And, when Saul reneges on it, he chalks it up as not being part of God’s plan.

Or, when he brought provisions from his father Jesse to his 3 older brothers preparing to fight the Philistines and brother Eliab ripped into him for coming to watch the war, he didn’t take offense and sulk off, pouting, feeling sorry for himself but simply questioned his comments and then got on with his life.

So what is God telling me? Get your relationship in order which requires destroying my pride and the rest will work itself out. “I love it when a plan comes together”.

Mason Swinney