I can’t even imagine how David must have felt at Absalom’s rebellion. His own son, winning the hearts of the people and setting up a kingship for himself – what an outrage! Most Kings in those days would probably have killed their son for doing such a thing, but not David. We see David sitting back and taking a blessing from Ziba, and then we see Shimei throwing stones at him and cursing him. What a contrast from just a few verses ago. One man comes to bless, another comes to curse. Isn’t that just how life is?
We live in a fickle world, and there are always those who will mock us and those who will praise us. We have a tendency to want to do something to get back at the ones who say bad things about us. We want to use our bad words against them as well, maybe not to their face but to someone else. But look at David’s attitude in all this. He trusts in God to bring him through, adn just ignores Shimei, even though his close advisors want Shimei dead for cursing the King. David jis certainly a man for mercy!
Then we see Absalom getting advice from two men on what to do. Absalom was seeking to take Jerusalem and defeat his own father, and Ahithophel and Hushai came to talk with him about that. Hushai was a close friend of David;s, and Absalom wondered about the advice he gave. Finally, Ahithophel gave his advice countering the advice of Hushai. Today;s reading ends here. This is a lesson for us when seeking advice. Listen to several before you make a decision on matters of importance. But even more important is going to God to seek wisdom in any situation. We see David doing this quite often. Absalom went to men instead of God. he also told men to come to him with their problems and he would judge their matters. Abbsalomn shows a life full of pride. David shows a life of humility. A stark contrast between father and son that we shoul;d take note of. Always follow humility!
You and I can learn a lot from these stories today. I am not an easy one to offend, and I usually do not attack back at someone who might say something bad about me. But I might say things to someone else about that person. This ought not to be so. If we are offended by someone, the only person we should talk to about it is that person, or maybe a confidential accountability person we trust to keep it private. We should never air our dirty laundry to someone who has nothing to do with the problem, but this is what the world does. I don’t recall David saying one unkind word about Absalom. We try to rally people to our side, but I don’t see David doing that. David knew that God was ultimately involved so he was going to leave it all up to God! I think that is a pretty good strategy!
God's Maintenance Man 