Day 52- Having a Humble Heart
📖Daily Reading
1 Samuel 25-31
🎥 Video
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
1 Samuel 25:32 -33
“Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, who has sent you to meet me today! Thank God for your good sense! Bless you for keeping me from murder and from carrying out vengeance with my own hands.”
As soon as David arrives on the scene you can see his humble nature and heart. His strength of character comes from knowing who he is because of whose he is and never forgetting that. We see his predecessor and counterpart Saul getting this backwards. He believes in himself and begins to believe his own hype and title and seems to forget who put him in this position of power and who he is serving. God becomes second in command and Saul becomes consumed with his own pride and ego which drives him to be jealous and afraid of David.
There was example after example of David’s character and his humble heart. The example that struck me the this morning was just the opposite of what we saw Saul do with his ‘foolish’ oath. While David was on the run with his men, one of the areas he spend time in was the wilderness of Maon. There was a wealthy property owner named Nabal. He was known to be rude and mean, but he had an honorable wife named Abigail. David send his men with a message to Nabal asking for some provisions and lets him know that he is honorable and had been protecting his shephards and animals while they were in the wilderness, he even says - ask them, they will vouch for me and verify it is true. Nabal being true to his character not only refuses his but he insults them.
This angers David and he swears to kill him. Abigail hears about what happened and intervenes on behalf of her ill-tempered husband. She gathers provisions and behind her husbands back heads out to meet with David. She appeals to his humble heart and reminds him whose he is and that murdering her husband would be beneath him and would only come back to haunt him and ruin his reputation and God’s. Prior to the verses quoted above, Abigail’s says in verse 30 & 31 “When the Lord has done all he promised and has made you leader of Israel, don’t let this be a blemish on your record. Then your conscience won’t have to bear the staggering burden of needless bloodshed and vengeance.”
So here is an example where David could have done what Saul did in yesterday’s example and charged headlong into pridefulness and refusing to admit that he was wrong. But he doesn’t, he immediately is open to Abigail’s own humbleness and obedience to the Lord. He hear’s the Lord’s message to him through her and not only stops himself but thanks her and God for the intervention. He is grateful that God has saved him from himself and his own mistake of falling into prideful anger and following his ego’s desire for revenge. This is what it means to have a humble heart, that even in the midst of anger and passion, that you can be open to seeing the error of your ways.
This is something I am really working on and have been for a couple of years now. As a recovering people pleaser, it was very easy to convince myself that I was always a humble person. We sometimes equate ‘niceness’ with humility. These are not the same things. Martyring yourself often breeds resentment and pridefulness. It takes true strength of character to not only admit when you are wrong, but to be grateful to the one who is the messenger.
You can come off of your high horse voluntarily, or trust me, eventually you will get knocked off, it is your choice! I think we can learn from Saul and David and see which is the better path, but not necessarily the easier one. I have been knocked off that high horse(a few times, I am stubborn), it is painful!
I now do my best to choose the temporary sting to my ego to be humble, it is much less painful and in the end I can not only live peacefully with myself, but my relationships with others are now built on trust and authenticity. We see from these stories that Saul lived in torment and suffered from broken and false relationships, he felt like everyone was out to get him, but it was really his own ego and pride that was his demise.
These are not easy things to face in yourself, it takes courage to see yourself honestly. It can seem scary and threatening, but step out in faith and begin the process. Ask for forgiveness, give yourself grace, even David was not perfect. We are going to continue to see examples of this. But he loved God and he knew that God loved him. That is God’s gift of mercy to us every day! God’s way is not our way, the sooner we ‘get’ it, the better off we will be.
P.S.
For those of you that stick with me and read these long posts - thank you!! I am reading the Bible for the first time on my own from front to back this year and asking God to speak directly to me without being led by a devotional etc. These posts are my heart felt shares of what God is laying on my heart each day. Devotional are great, don’t get me wrong, and I am still doing them, but just not in relation to what I am reading on my own daily. This is a new experience for me to read the Bible and go directly into prayer and meditation on it with God. What an adventure! And as usual I am saying to myself , ‘why didn’t you do this sooner?’! I am stubborn. But I know I can also trust God’s timing in everything.
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
Can you think of a time when you have been knocked off of your proverbial high horse? Did you defend yourself and get angry? Can you see see that humility even though hard is actually the easier path in the long run? The healing path even?
📖Tomorrows Reading
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