1 Samuel 24:19-20 — For if a man find his enemy, will he let him go well away? wherefore the Lord reward thee good for that thou hast done unto me this day. And now, behold, I know well that thou shalt surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in thine hand.

I’m doing a lot of waiting today. International travel is like that. I waited for the bus to the airport. I waited to check in. I waited for Security. I waited to board. I’m waiting while the flight travels across the Atlantic. Then I’m going to wait for Immigration. Then Customs. Then Security again. Then boarding. Then another flight.
You know … life’s like that. By the times all is said and done, there might just be more waiting to life than anything else.
I’ve been reading a lot about King David in devotions really, and I’ve come to see that he knew how to wait … or at least he learned how to wait.
The story at the head of this piece tells of one of two opportunities that David had to “accelerate” God’s plan for his life. You see, David knew he was going to be king. Samuel had anointed it. It was settled. So when he crept into Saul’s camp and found him sleeping, who would have blamed him if, instead of just stealing his spear, David had killed him? Or if, on this occasion, when Saul had gone to relieve himself, David had cut his throat and not just the edge of his cloak?
David knew how to wait. In fact he knew that to raise his hand against the Lord’s anointed was a blasphemous sin. He would not, could not, do it.
In fact, the inability to wait was one of the things that established Saul’s unfitness to found a line of kings. I’m sure you remember that story too. In 1 Samuel 13 we read that Israel, hard-pressed by the Philistines, went out to battle led by Saul. Samuel, however, told them to wait until he came to sacrifice for them first. After seven days however, Samuel had not arrived and Saul took matters into his own hands and sacrilegiously offered the sacrifice himself. The consequences were, for him, devastating. Samuel told him:
Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, which he commanded thee: for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee. (1 Samuel 13:13-14)
David knew something Saul didn’t. Under no circumstances should mere men presume to accelerate God’s plans. Patience is one of God’s own attributes. After all, what does God say of Himself:
The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. (Exodus 34:6-7)
Maybe David knew a bigger truth even than the truth of the need for patience. Maybe he knew that becoming patient is becoming more like God — and that above all, God want us to be remade in his image.
If I’m right, waiting is inevitable. And to patiently in the Immigration line will be to grow closer to God!