Insight for Today
A Daily Devotional by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

What do you think those who survive you will write as your epitaph? How will your obituary read? What words will be used in the eulogy to sum up your life? Saul's epitaph was a sad one.

David had reached the point in life where some people think of taking their own lives. He was so far down the ladder of despair that he'd reached the bottom rung. The last stop.

Mission accomplished! Everybody wins. David and his men go back full of food and all the wiser. Fantastic! Abigail goes home, and her husband puts his arm around her and says, "Honey, thanks. You're a great lady . . ."

My, oh my, did David learn a lesson! "Blessed be God. He kept me from murdering this man—from doing evil. I don't have to fight that kind of battle, that's God's job. If vengeance is required, it is God's to do."

AbigaiI knew her husband, didn't she? Everyone knew what he was like, so why hide it? Why try to cover up what he had done? She didn't. And yet she took the responsibility upon herself.

Four hundred men! That'll probably handle Nabal, don't you think? When you overdo something in our house, we have a saying, "You're killing a roach with a shotgun." You kill the roach all right, but you blow the wall out at the same time.

All this brings me to three helpful principles to live by when it comes to life's most subtle temptation. Each is worth remembering when we are mistreated. First, since man is depraved, expect to be mistreated.

David told Saul the whole unvarnished truth; he told it to the person to whom it mattered most. Not to his comrades or to Saul's friends or to the people of Israel but to Saul himself.

Here we see a guy who did the right thing and brought a whole group with him. He persuaded them with his words. The literal meaning here, strange as it may seem, is "tore apart." He tore them apart with his words.

What a friend Jonathan was! No pettiness, no envy, no jealousy. Remember, as Saul's son, Jonathan would have been the heir apparent. He might have wanted the praise of the people, yet here was this kid from the hills of Bethlehem garnering all of it.

Now look at Psalm 34, which I believe is the third psalm he wrote while in the cave. What a difference. What a change has come over David! He says, "I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth" (v. 1).

We looked at Psalm 142. Now let's look at two others David wrote, Psalms 57 and 34. We don't know in what order he wrote these, but looking at his life, they seem to fit in this backward order . . .

David had bottomed out. This was the lowest moment of David's life to date, and if you want to know how he really felt, just read the song he composed during those days, Psalm 142. Can you feel the loneliness of that desolate spot?

As fear and worry intensified, Saul became paranoid. "What more can he have now but the kingdom?" His self-talk lost control. "Hey, I've got a problem on my hands. Here's a giant-killer who's about to become a king-killer."

They were singing and dancing in the streets, welcoming and honoring this young man who had defended the name of their God. If there is a single statement that best describes David at this time in his life, it would be this one . . .

God knew that David needed an intimate friend to walk with him through the valley that was ahead of him. Intimate friends are rare in life. Often we have only one, occasionally two, usually not more than three in our entire lives.

Without realizing it, mighty Augustus was only an errand boy for the commencement of "the fullness of time." He was a pawn in the hand of God . . . a mere piece of lint on the pages of prophecy.

Before you read again on the birth of Jesus, it might be best for you to lay it aside and start from scratch. The Christmas story has been so sanitized and romanticized over the centuries.

All David had was a sling and a stone as he took on a giant wearing two hundred pounds of armor. It may seem silly, but that's the way God operates. In the final analysis, there was a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh . . .

The beautiful thing about this story is that it's a perfect example of how God operates. He magnifies HIS name when we are weak. We don't have to be eloquent or strong or beautiful or physically fit or handsome.