One Foot in Spiritual or One Foot in World

It is time for David to make a permanent break from Saul’s court. In 1 Samuel 19, Saul attacks David for the third time. Each time Saul hurled is spear at David with expertise, but David dodged it and the spear stuck into the wall behind David. The previously two times, Jonathan talks to Saul and Saul says he will not attack David again. So, based on Jonathan’s assurances, David returns to Saul’s court.

This time, David “fled and escaped that night” (1 Samuel 19:10). Tom Bradford, a Hebrew Christian, comments that David is on the run from then on. However, Jonathan still tries to hold onto his dad and yet remain loyal to David. This is a struggle many of us share in one way or another.

For me, one of the struggles was holding onto the belief that I grew up in an idyllic middle class household versus recognizing that everything was not perfect. My parents did many things right. They did handle some situations as best they knew how, however, there were lasting impacts on my life that turned out to be detrimental to my emotional and mental development. Like Jonathan, I wanted to believe that my parents were totally good people with minor frustrations that led to consequences for me that hindered my dealing with emotions and events in my life in the best ways possible. I wanted to believe they were all good. Don’t get me wrong, I do not now or have ever believed that my parents purposely set out to hurt me; it just happened as a course of living. It was hard for me to learn to effectively deal with life on life’s terms – a process still in progress.

Jonathan wanted to be loyal to his father and to his covenant friend (1 Samuel 18:1-4). He had one foot in his dad’s camp and one foot following David. How often do we try to do the same thing when it comes to following God? We want to follow God with our whole hearts, but we make choices that place us firmly in the realm of worldly living (whether it’s telling little white lies or hanging around things we know turn us away from God’s best for us). I want to participate in “fun” things in this world and yet still profess to be a follower of Christ. The problem is living like that is energy sapping. It also becomes unmanageable and wrought with problems. In my case trying to be a Christian and engaging in alcohol abuse, led to emotional and physical catastrophe. I couldn’t do both an maintain a balanced emotional life. I see other areas of my life even today that can be like that – if not to the same extreme. I have choices to make and if I waver between the choices of this world and the choices of serving God, my mood and responses to life suffer.

This is an area we all need to consider in our lives. Are we trying to live with one foot in the spiritual world and one foot in the amoral world?