1 SAMUEL 27

Are you imperfect? Great! You’re a prime candidate to be used by God! He loves to recruit and use imperfect people in His unfolding plan for this Earth. Well, okay, I guess He really doesn’t have much of a choice. If He wants to use humans, He will have to settle for imperfect ones. But I suppose He could have chosen to do things without us... or made us so we couldn’t screw up in the first place (i.e. without freedom). I’m glad God chose to do it the way He did.

So, why all this talk of imperfection? Oh, David. He’s like a see-saw. Up one chapter, down the next. I read verse one of this chapter and wondered, What is David thinking?

"But David thought to himself, 'One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul. The best thing I can do is to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel, and I will slip out of his hand.'" (vs 1)

One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul. Why in the world would David have thought such a foolish thought? In this blog, I have ragged on Saul for not discerning God’s supernatural protection over David... but are you telling me that David had not discerned it either?! After all he had been through with God, after all the evidences of God’s love and protection he had been shown, how could he think that he would eventually fall prey to Saul’s evil plans?

The best thing I can do is to escape to the land of the Philistines. It wasn’t so long ago that I was writing high praise of David for running first to the sanctuary. How had David lost sight of that strategy? Now, instead of escaping to God, he was planning an escape to the Philistines! Hmmm... running to the enemy instead of to God... why, we would never do that, would we? Seems we’re not so different from David, I guess.

But really, the place David went wrong was in the very first phrase of the chapter: David thought to himself. Instead of crying out to God, instead of seeking the Lord, he began trying to think up his own solutions. He began to do the very opposite of his actions in the last chapter. The see-saw effect.

What’s amazing to me is how God can take such imperfection and use it to craft a wonderful, glorious ending to the story. What hope that gives me! What encouragement! God likes imperfect people, and that means He likes me, and that means He likes you. He is willing and ready to use you today. Are you willing to let Him? Don’t wait until you’re "perfect" to let Him in. Don’t worry about screwing up His plans. He’s not surprised by our up-and-down cycle of successes and failures. His plans include our imperfections!