A Common Bond (and some other jumbled thoughts)

I’ve often looked at the men in the Bible, all the “greats,” like David, Moses, Job, Daniel, and others, and have really admired them for their amazing hearts for God. I always find myself wanting to be like them, but feel like there’s just no way that I can even begin to match up to them because of how godly they are. But recently I decided to make a list of all the things David did, that made him so pleasing to God. The list included things like trust, integrity, righteousness, fear of the Lord, and many others. But as I read about different people in the Bible, I noticed that there are a lot of similarities between all those great men. Job showed the exact same trust in God during his trials, as David in his. Moses showed that obedience, and Daniel exhibited similar integrity and praise for God. Each one was definitely different, possessing his own qualities and struggles, but I think there must have been one important, core thing in common between all of them, and also all the other faithful guys throughout God’s Word. I don’t specifically have one word or adjective to describe it perfectly, but I think that core thing that gave these men the strength to do righteous things was the relationship they had with their God in the beginning. Now, I said “their God” on purpose because they really did make Him their God. You can sense it in the things they say (whether in their prayers or the things they said to others) that there’s something in that relationship that goes really, really deep. They love God very much. God is like an old friend to them, someone that has been there by their side wherever they’ve gone, whatever they’ve done, and He’s been teaching them things all along the way. They’ve had to learn hard lessons and endure hard things, but God has taken them through it all, and become very precious to them.

That’s why Daniel could not stop praying to God even as he was about to be consumed by a den-full of lions. That’s why David could praise God, even when his very life was threatened by Saul, and why he could go to the Lord for comfort when all his men were angry with him. It’s why Moses could continue leading the complaining, unfaithful Israelites through that hot, miserable desert his whole life, and why Job could sit in the dark room of his house, in severe pain and misery, with the sense of losing his possessions and his ten children. On top of that, he had to deal with (what used to be) his friends despising and criticizing him, and he could still say “I know that my redeemer lives.”

So I guess my reason for saying all this, is that I’m probably not the only one who’s wanted to be like Job or David, and felt very hopelessly like it was impossible, that I was totally inadequate, because these guys are just so strong. I mean, they made it all the way to the Bible, after all! But I would say, don’t lose hope. Try to study them and find the things in the beginning of their lives that may have started to bring about that beautiful friendship with God.

Here are a few things that I’ve thought of to get started: Daniel was wrenched away from his home, his family, and future, and brought into captivity in Babylon. Very soon after he arrived there, he was asked to eat meat and other things God had told him not to. Guys like meat. It smells good, it tastes chewy, and it’s satisfying, ever so much more satisfying than lettuce. Or green beans. But he overcame that. He found a way to obey God, and I’m sure that helped to bring him close to God.

David’s brothers, all 7 of them, went to war. Isn’t it every boy’s dream to go to war, and be noble, and fight for your country? But David had to stay home with his parents and watch the sheep! How un-noble is that?! But he used those hours and hours of being alone in the meadow to play his harp, and play songs to the Lord. I imagine that was a time where his relationship with God really grew.

Moses grew up a Hebrew boy in an Egyptian’s house. As he grew older, he had to watch his people suffer by the Egyptians, which we know was difficult for him because he killed one of them in revenge. He ran away to the wilderness where he became the son-in-law of a shepherd for 40 years. God used this time to prepare him to be a leader to his people.

And Job uses his time of riches and his great bounty to develop his integrity. The Bible says he is righteous, upright, and shuns evil. He even makes sacrifices for his children, which is another thing that demonstrates his relationship to God before his horrible trial whams him.

Now I hope that, after you have looked at more people’s lives and learned how they developed that relationship, that you will work on using whatever situations you might have—whether you are dissatisfied, bored, afraid, unfairly treated, or everything is going just fine—to develop yours, because I think it is actually very possible for us to do the same things David did, as long as we have that deep and precious relationship with God. We need to make Him “our” God.