Finding God in humbling moments: David’s journey (2 Sam 15:30-37)

In the year that I was finishing my university degree in Budapest and after an earlier tourist visit to Israel, I was hoping and praying that I might go back there for a gap year. Opportunities, however, seemed scarce as I was unwilling to go the usual route of volunteering in a kibbutz. I was seeking a Christian place and a chance encounter with an American in a Christian bookshop led to a conversation that turned around to Israel. I felt prompted to ask my acquaintance if he knew of a Christian organisation in Israel where I could volunteer for a year and, to my surprise, he did! I wrote to the manager of the Christian youth hostel that I was pointed to and asked if there would be a place for me. A few months later, after completing my degree, I was on my way to Israel. God is often at work behind the scenes as we pray and He moves us towards His goal through opportunities that He gives and using the steps we take that present themselves.

Humbled yet rising

We shall see this same aspect of God at work in David’s story where the Lord’s opportunities and David’s initiative will work together to bring about God’s plan. When David left Jerusalem, he would have walked down with his men into the Kidron valley on the east side of the city. As our reading opens, he is ritually mourning the loss of his status and climbing up the Mount of Olives (2 Sam 15:30) on the other side of the valley. Hebrew narrative sometimes uses physical location and up and down movement in space to highlight a parallel spiritual reality in a person’s life (note, for instance, Jonah’s downward movement physically that mirrors the downward spiral of his spiritual state in disobedience; Jonah 1:3, 5). Here in David’s life, it is paradoxical that even as he is humbled and barefoot (v.30), he is rising and will be coming to the summit where God is worshipped (to the place of a shrine; 2 Sam 15:32). This physical upward movement is symbolic of the way his relationship with the Lord is being renewed despite his lowly status. It is often in those moments of humbling and hardship that we reconnect with the Lord.

Answer to prayer

For the first time in a long while, we hear David pray to God as he receives news of his counsellor’s defection (2 Sam 15:31). Once again, there is a symbolism in the way he meets Hushai just as he reaches the summit and the place of worship (v.32). David is back spiritually in a place where he seeks God and, while he does not know this, Hushai is the Lord’s answer to his prayer. Described as David’s ‘friend’ (2 Sam 15:37), this is possibly more than a reference to a personal associate and may describe a counsellor, perhaps the most trusted one in court.[1] David recognises the opportunity presented to him and sends Hushai back to be another of his men in Absalom’s court, part of the network of supporters who can exert an influence and report back on events (2 Sam 15:34-36). Hushai, in fact, will be instrumental in saving David’s life. The Lord is at work in mysterious ways presenting opportunities and weaving David’s initiatives into His plan to restore him to the throne.

The other ‘David’

As we read David’s story, we can be encouraged that God is involved in our lives, too. We may not fully appreciate at the time what is happening, but when we seek Him in our relationship and in prayer, we can know His sustaining strength and His power to make His plans for us happen. The events in David’s flight also evoke the figure of Jesus, who likewise climbed up to the Mount of Olives before being arrested and crucified and lived through the same paradox of being humbled and divested of his crown, even as he was rising toward the exaltation that would be His from God. Like David, Jesus too was betrayed, but he was not saved from death but through it. Once again, as we reflect on the coming of Jesus in our Christmas celebrations, we can be thankful that he willingly set aside His crown for a while to be of service to us.

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[1] David G. Firth, 1 & 2 Samuel (Nottingham: Apollos, 2009), 458.

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