1 SAMUEL 18

What a great contrast in this chapter—of what men are like with and without God. By this time, Saul was obviously aware that God was with David: "Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with David but had departed from Saul." (vs 12) Furthermore, because God was with David, he had success in everything he did. The more Saul tried to derail his success (and even end his life), the more David flourished.

As the chapter went on, Saul became increasingly paranoid and unreasonable. After being angry about the victory song the Israelite women were singing, Saul graduated to trying to kill David; then, he decided to let war do his dirty work for him and sent David into dangerous battles instead. When that didn’t work, he thought that distracting him with a beautiful woman would help throw him off his game and, in the meantime, asked for David to kill (and circumcise) 100 Philistines as a wedding gift. David killed 200 instead.

At the end of the chapter, it said, "When Saul realized that the Lord was with David and that his daughter Michal loved David, Saul became still more afraid of him, and he remained his enemy the rest of his days." (vs 28-29) What I thought was interesting was the difference between Saul and David. When a man has separated himself from God, he becomes envious, suspicious, quick-tempered, and dangerous. David, on the other hand, was ever ready to serve Saul—even as he was dodging Saul’s spear!

Without God, there is no way to tame our wild hearts. He alone has the power to transform us from a "Saul" into a "David"—if we are willing to let Him. No character flaw is too formidable for the power of His Spirit. He alone can tame the wild heart. When He is "with us," we will be changed. When we have separated ourselves from Him, look out!