Good Morning Friends,
“David fled from Naioth and went to Jonathan
and asked, ‘What have I done? How have I wronged your father, that he is trying
to take my life?’ ‘Never!’ Jonathan replied. ‘You are not going to die! Look,
my father doesn't do anything without confiding in me. Why would he hide this
from me? It's not so!’ David took an oath and said, ‘Your father knows very
well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he has said to himself,
“Jonathan must not know this or he will be grieved.” As surely as the Lord
lives and as you live, there is only a step between me and death.’ Jonathan
said to David, ‘Whatever you want me to do, I'll do for you.’" (1 Samuel
20:1-4)
Jonathan was Saul’s oldest son and heir to the
throne. When Saul died Jonathan would become king. Jonathan should have been
threatened by David. Instead of being threatened by David’s popularity and the
evidence of God’s hand upon him, Jonathan was drawn to David as his closest
friend. Jonathan puts his friendship with David above his relationship with his
father. He promises David that he would protect him from his father and warn
him about his father’s secret plans. Jonathan was promising to betray his own
father!
Family relationships are important. The honor
and respect a son is to give his father and mother is so important to God and
critical society that God included that instruction in His Ten Commandments.
God commands children to honor parents.
But doing what is right supersedes doing what
parents want. Saul’s plotting to kill David was wrong. It would have been wrong
for Jonathan to join in the conspiracy or to sit idly by and allow his father’s
conspiracy to go forward without warning David.
Jonathan made the right choice, though it must
have been difficult. He chose to do is right instead of what his father wanted
him to do.
We hope never to be faced with that choice. Parents
should lead us toward God, not away from Him. They should instruct us in right
and discourage us from wrong. But when parents lead their children toward wrong
– the right choice is to say “no”.
His, by Grace, Steve
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