For A Lifetime

“And David spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul:” (2Sa 22:1 AV)

David wrote this at the death of Absalom.  This was about five or six years before David’s death.  In other words, David spent his entire life battling those who wanted to harm him.  From the time he was ordained until the time he laid hands on Solomon as his successor, there wasn’t a year that went by which did not require David to fight some kind of battle.  This truth of life is the same for the New Testament saint.  When we accepted Christ, we entered a battle that will last a lifetime.  Paul writes his protégé Timothy, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:” (2Ti 4:7 KJB)  He writes this to Timothy at the end of his life, not the beginning or middle.  In our pursuit of a peaceful and tranquil life, we often forget our life is full of struggle that will never go away.  At least not until eternity.  David was successful in life because he submitted to this reality.  He didn’t try to change it.  Other than the heathen, David didn’t go looking for a fight.  The fight came to him.  David chooses to engage the battle, whether he went to it, or it came to him.  This was a choice for a lifetime.  A choice that served him well.

One of the traps a laborer can succumb to working in the factory is living with the status quo.  Even if things can be improved upon, there is something to be said for punching in, doing your job the same way it’s been done for decades, then punching out and going home.  Even if there are major improvements that could be made, we get stuck in our rut and don’t want to exert energy towards change.  Working in a factory for almost a decade, one of the meetings we dreaded the most was our Monday meetings with the middle managers.  We knew there would be some policy or procedure change.  Mostly very slight ones.  The majority of the workforce believed they made a change just to keep their jobs relevant.  However, for the most part, these changes were improvements in policy or procedure.  Sometimes they saved us work.  Sometimes they added to the work already required.  I remember when management required we triple our quality checks.  How annoying.  We were required because there were complaints from our customers over slacking product standards and quality.  We became lax in our duties which required more work.  Whether we liked it or not, to stay in business and keep our customers (plus adding new ones), constant critique and change was the policy of the company.  Pretty much, this is standard in all business.  There is always a fight to fight.  Always a wrong to right.  Always a good thing to improve.

If you are like me, you understand that fighting all the time is tiring.  We get burned out.  All we want is a secluded island somewhere with a small little hut, a hammock, and a view of the ocean in all directions.  We want a week or two of nothing but the sound of lapping water, the cool breeze, and warm sun, and sipping ice-cold freshwater from a tall crystal clear glass.  We want the rest well deserved at the end of the battle.  We feel like the sitcom M*A*S*H*.  A sitcom that ran well over a decade which depicted a war that only spanned three years.  Because of the intensity of the battle, we wonder if it will ever end.  At the conclusion of his life, David rested.  Until the, he fought.  He fought with everything he had.  He leaned on his Rock.  He held faith in God like a sword that never departed.  He embraced the struggle even though he would do anything if it could have been avoided.  From Goliath to Absalom, David engaged the struggle.  He committed to that which the LORD had ordained for him.  He may not have liked it.  It may have dragged him down further than he thought he could survive.  But survive he did.  He more than survived.  He flourished.  It is this characteristic that sets David above all others.  It is why he was called the apple of God’s eye.  It is why Israel, to this day, still loves David.  He was a soldier’s soldier.  He never quit.  He never asked to be relieved.  He stayed in the battle for as long as there was one to fight.  This is what the saint needs to do.  He needs to determine to stay engaged for as long as there is breath in his lungs.  Then and only then can he embrace his eternal rest.