A Man After My Own Heart

"I have found David the son of Jesse,
a man after My own heart, who will do all My will."
(acts 13:22)

A new post, a new day!

Friends, these days I have been reading a lot from the book of Psalms. And something somehow urged me to write, about the great king that made this book, king David.

Writing here doesn't mean I will be talking about his biography, how many cities he had won, how big his kingdom is, but I will talk today about his relationship with The Almighty.

David wrote the biggest book of songs in the bible. After Psalms there is Solomon's Songs of Solomon, but David's book were wider and deeper about God.

As I flipped through the book of Psalms, I found how normal David was. He got tired, he got physically ill, he could be afraid of his enemies, and sometimes he even got disappointed with God. As a king that ruled a great region, David had lots of problems. I imagined being him on his days, and all I saw was a great responsibility of ruling a great country. I imagined how David must kept his wisdom sharp, how he had to be alert of enemy threat all of the time, he had to train his soldiers, feed his people, and keep the country prospering. Only on thought of that made me shiver, thinking how difficult it must've been.

But reading through the book over and over, I never found any single sentence of being disappointed in following God. Yes he got tired, yes he got pursued by his enemies, but through all that, David never ever blame God. On every end of his Psalm, he thanked God, wrote how in awe he was of his God, no matter how hard the situation is, he kept believing that God is big and faithful, and will get him out of everything in His time, no matter what.

How submitted he was, was shown in Psalm 16:8, for example. David wrote,

Keep me as the apple of Your eye; Hide me under the shadow of your wings.

And I thought to myself, how could he be so sure and secure?

David was 100 percent certain that God will take care of his life. Why? The answer came right away: David lived in a manner of pleasing God.

David knew that without God he would be nothing, and that he couldn't go alone. As great as a king, he never forgot that God was in total control of His life. He knew that if his way of life is pleasing God, God will bless him and expand him, making his life fruitful. And in David's case, God expanded his kingdom and treasuries.

How far did David went in pleasing God? We got to our first lesson. David went undivided. He gave all of him. As I gazed back to the Bible, as long as I can remember, it was only David that was brave enough to say these words in Psalm 16:3:

You have tested my heart;
You have visited me in the night;
You have tried me and found nothing;
I have purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.

And repeated in Psalm 26, and 139:23, that David kept daring God to test his heart and see his motives, for he knew that he lived according to God's righteousness.

The second thing I learned from David, what made him so faithful to God, was how he understood that following God is not always an easy way. As I wrote earlier, David encountered difficulties, lost in battles, death of his children, and all that gave him reason to be upset and angry with God.

Yet, he didn't.

David knew this. (Psalm 119:75)

I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are right,
And that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.

David knew he was serving a faithful God, that was fair and just, and that the difficulties he was facing was a way of God to made him mature. So faced with problems, yes it brought him down, yet he didn't choose to stay on the floor. But he learned from what he faced, and be wiser and closer to God with it.

The final thing I saw in David was, that he saw God's word as the source of his strength. He knew that he would perish and be nothing without God's word (Psalm 119:92-93), He knew that God's word gave him wisdom (Psalm 119:98-100), and so proud and in love with God's word, David even dared that he could testify of it in front of kings and will not be ashamed (Psalm 119:46).

He loved God's word, and meditated on it, gave him strength and ability to do what God wanted him to do, to decide what was right and to stay faithful to God.

This, friends, is a wonderful way of living. On David's era, he lived under the law of torah, which demanded more and knew no forgiveness in any way. Yet he decided to live flawless before God, pleasing him in all that he did. Shouldn't we be ashamed, as we live after the death of Jesus Christ, after His blood was shed for our forgiveness, heiyet we still cannot live the way David lived, blameless and pure?
David's way of life was a way that pleased God. He was so pleased that He called him a man after My own heart. This is the lifestyle we should pursue. Lifestyle of covenant, lifestyle that pleases God. Would it be an amazing feeling, having the Creator of this world calling you a man after His own heart?

As I reflect now, living radically for God and worldly, will both make you tired. If you follow the lifestyle of this world, having a "free" way of living, following trends, modes, feeling insecure all the time, that will toast up your energy. As David, if you would choose to follow God differently and radically, burn in a higher level than before, you will still face problems, you will still be tired. But the difference from living in the way of this world is, you will have a great God that would take care of you. He would sustain you and keep you safe, for He had promised in Isaiah 49:15:

"Can a woman forget her nursing child,
And not have compassion on the son of her womb?
Surely they may forget,
Yet I will not forget you."

On this promise, David, Samuel, Ruth, and many other amazing people of God written and unwritten on the Bible had stand. I will stand on this promise, letting God work in His way, knowing that I am unforgettable to Him.

And I am happy, although most of the times I still cannot see what God is planning. I am content and patient, waiting God's way to be opened. I dare you today to do the same. Follow God like David. Follow God undivided.