Today while he was preaching, Chuck shared a valuable lesson: you can't play you're whole life safe and expect God to be happy with it. It's like offering Him a piece of bread while you have seven or eight loaves in your breadbox. It just doesn't cut it.
Instead of re-wording what Chuck said today, I'd like to focus on what stood out to me: when Joab tells David to shape up.
David, at this point, is at the bottom of the barrel. He's aging, he lost everything, he's just down for the count. I think the last straw was the death of his son. Everything around him was falling apart For David, he lost the will to go on. How many times have we decided that what is dished to us is too much? We just can't take on all the burdens of our daily lives, and can see no point in even trying to continue on. This is where David is. This is where I admit to have been before, and is probably, if you're being honest, a place you've been before too. It's an understandable feeling though. A lot of times, when things fall apart, the easiest reaction is to shut down. Just shut yourself down because you're in so far over you're head that it doesn't matter what you do. A lot of people cry at this point, David does. Some people get angry, some people spend all day in bed, some people drink, some people abuse drugs, but any way you shape it, it's not facing your problem- it's running from it. Sometimes you need to kick yourself to get going. In David's case, Joab did it for him.
Joab comes in and basically tells David to get his act together. He tells him to wash his face, stop crying, and face his men. How many times have we done this for a friend? It is something that is really hard to do, no doubt about that. As a friend, my first instinct is usually to comfort. But Joab knew that getting past his grief was the best thing for David, so instead of letting him cry, he whipped him into shape. I've had to do this for a few friends, and it gets rough. You risk a friendship, because not all people want to face their problems. Most would resent you for trying to snap them out of their comfortable blanket of self-pity. In the end, though, doing this is the best course of action, because letting a friend wallow in self-pity is not being a friend, it's being an enabler, and it's not something a real friend would do.
Hope you all had a great Sunday, and for all you Greeks, Christos Anesti! :)
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