The Sunday News
Itai Chipunza
1 Samuel 18 verse 6-7
When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes. As they danced, they sang: “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.”
NO matter where you come from, you want to be a great person, or at least you may have wanted it at one point. No one is born with a desire to be mediocre. Women too want to be in the life of a man that does great exploits. That is why they push men to do great things. In the above scripture, after Saul had established that David was faithful and loyal. David is immediately identified as one that belongs to the royal class. He rides with the king and high ranking army officials. This tells us that regardless of how great your talent may be, if you are one that is not faithful, you will never be regarded as one with kings. And if great exploits are not regarded as great by kings, are they great?
Out of loyalty and submission, the act of killing Goliath becomes great because the king of the nation certifies it. The loyalty David showed to Saul made David into an even greater man because his starting point was no longer at village hero level. It was at kingdom level. He automatically became one of the finest solders in the kingdom. Not in the village. Imagine if David had been a disloyal person to Saul, he would have been sent back to the village to head sheep and he would not have become the king we read about today. By entering Jerusalem with David, Saul himself puts a stamp of approval on the actions of David. You may be very talented in your craft, but if you have no veteran whose name you are identified with, it will take you ten times more effort to achieve the same results as one riding the names of those who have already done it. Before you are propelled to a big audience, you must first have one you are serving in a small audience. He will certify you to stand before big audiences.
David is helped by the history of his father to be raised into the royal class. Jasse was one under Saul as a faithful servant. His act of faithfulness to King Saul brought David closer to Saul. This is because the assumption is, you are exactly who your father is. If your father is loyal, you too are loyal. A father will never let you use his name in your dealings unless he has proven that you are one that can be trusted with the power that comes with his name. After the name of his father Jasse got him an audience with Saul, he proves his ability. This means for promotion to come, you need a combination of approval from your previous leader and ability to do the work. This is why even today when you look for a job, in your curriculum vitae there must be your qualifications and contact details of those that can confirm your character and loyalty. Under Saul, David went out and did great and mighty exploits. Despite the fact that he had been drafted into the Kings closest circle, he did not turn from being loyal. He actually proved the loyalty that was put in him by his father Jasse. Even in times when Saul wanted to kill him, he did not seek to revenge, he respected power of the king and never forgot the fact that he was there to serve. With ample opportunity to kill the king, David did not do it.
While serving Saul , David did even more than the man he served. This is because where the father reaches in terms of exploits, is where you begin if you follow his DNA. David’s father had worked as far as being a servant to the king, but David was now a peer of the king. A fellow warrior to the king. From being of service to his father and looking after sheep, he was in the cooking oven to become an even greater version of his father. What was considered great by the generation of Saul, became the starting point of the generation of David. It is vivid that what the generation of Saul marked as greatness is what became the take-off platform for the generation of David. When David showed up to the battlefield to check on his brothers, he found them in a state of fear as this huge man spoke insults at them. In other words, this was the most they could do, they could fight the Philistines only to the level bellow Goliath. Goliath represented a new breed of problems that were too big for them. It is then when David views this man as daily bread for his generation. He was looking at what was not his limit, but his everyday business. Killing to protect and preserve was what David regularly for sheep. Nothing Goliath was doing was new to David. The lions and bears would roar to instil fear in him in the desert, Goliath was making a lot of noise just to instil fear in him and his brothers. But from his years of training David knew that behind all this noise making and big teeth was a weak spot. Behind the body armour, spear, javelin was a weak area in the philistine. So David was simply taking care of business as usual. Killing to preserve and protect.
However, in the eyes of the older generation, David had done a great thing. They were a generation that used to go to war the conventional way, with army clothing, the usual weapons and were not used to such confrontation as that which they faced that day.
The same is true in our lives today. If my father worked and managed to build properties in Hwange. When I grow into a man, I will not have to struggle to conquer a single town in property buildings, I begin to face large cities to expand the real estate empire.
