puppeteering

After this David inquired of the LORD, “Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah?” And the LORD said to him, “Go up.” David said, “To which shall I go up?” And he said, “To Hebron.” So David went up there, and his two wives also, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel. 2 Samuel 2:1-2

David inquired of the Lord.

Six times we are told that David “inquired of the Lord” – three times in 1 Samuel and three times in 2 Samuel. And while that’s not an avalanche of inquiry, the close grouping of the occasions on which David inquires and God answers impresses me…and makes pronounced the absence of that inquiry in the second half of 2 Samuel.

Intriguing that when it comes to battle, David inquires of the Lord before he moves. When it comes to navigating his home life, nothing. He seems to move through the increasing wreckage of his life by his own wits. In the latter half of his life he is surrounded by puppeteers who counsel this or scheme that. His son Amnon lusts and schemes and though David seems to suspect what’s up, he doesn’t press it. And he doesn’t inquire. Absalom is banished, David mourns and a status quo of unresolved loss and grief sets in that is only broken by the maneouverings of Joab, Nathan-like, and the plotted sly pretensions of a woman disguised. She says, “My lord the king has wisdom like the angel of God to know all things that are on earth.” But David seems to me clueless and impotent, a man who is carried along, passively moved by strings wielded by others.

And he never inquires.

Absalom returns, but not. Absalom pulls Joab’s strings, Joab motions to David, and then vain and pretentious Absalom (he weighed his hair!) steals the hearts of Israel. Rebellion is afoot, David on the run again. And there is no inquiry. Though he does seem to awaken. Several appeals to God. “Confound the counsel of Absalom.” “Perhaps the Lord will see my grief and take pity.” And he takes the strings and moves his pieces around the board as Absalom sleeps with his women in an improvised rooftop brothel. And when it comes time to muster his forces against his own son, he doesn’t inquire. “I myself will go out with you.” “No you won’t,” retort his men. “Whatever seems best to you I will do,” says the king.

And he does not inquire.

It is a blatant famine of inquiry that seems only broken later by a three year famine in the land that finally produces the notice again that “David sought the face of the Lord.”

It just makes me reflect a bit on the all too frequent sparseness of real inquiry in my own life and experience. We pray, but so often not with serious expectation of response. Prayer as polite gesture, as a wave of the hand towards an invisible god whose favor We would humbly beseech as We do whatever makes sense to Us, whatever seems to sync with the expectations of people or with what we’ve always done or feel like we should do. On the whole, I’ve witnessed far more puppeteering over my three decades in this church business, of motions from meetings and calculations from committees.

Not that I have this inquiring business down. I’ve seen plenty of wanna-be inquirers over the years who strike me more as pagan priests and priestesses looking at livers. Guess I would just like a bit more of that wonderful naivete I see in David’s inquiries; longing for release from the inescapable puppeteering and calculations of life. Still hungry for the give and take of Tevye’s walk, with eyes up and hands in motion, complaining and questioning and laughing, feeling His rhythms, or savoring the memory of them when prayer seems unrequited.

And David inquired of the Lord…