Kathy and I have a son who works in what the participants commonly call “The Industry.” (If you listen to them closely, you can even hear the capital letters when they talk!) No matter where they may physically be around the world, their lives and their world-view are centered around Hollywood.

As I listen to some of the stories that our son tells, I can’t help but wonder how many of the script writers, producers, and executives are secretly reading the Bible to find source material for their movies and television shows. As a repository for character studies in greed, lust, power politics, and war-time heroics, the Bible provides an endless supply of ideas. It is also, in this section, a source of information about the ability to overcome against all odds, as it teaches us the practical results of “Finding God in the Ordinary.”

King David might qualify, in this passage, as the model for the character of Professor Harold Hill in the classic story of The Music Man. “There’s trouble in River City!” sings Hill – but it is trouble that he himself has created for his own benefit and because of his own self-centered ambitions. Hill was intentionally creating trouble that he intended to solve. David, the hero of our story, created his own troubles through his failure to follow God’s plan for governing a nation, his inability to control his sexual appetites, and his ineffective parenting in properly raising his children. The ‘trouble in Jerusalem’ that David would be singing about in a musical number created from this passage has come to a climax, as David and his followers flee the city while his son starts to take over the city and the nation of Israel. (“Pelethites, get ready, you’re on next! The Kerethites need more light, and they need it now!! NO!! The script calls for six hundred Gittites, and I expect to see six hundred Gittites!”)

The theme of David’s life appears to be periodic repetition of two extremes. He regularly moves between “Learning to make the same dumb mistakes in new ways” on the one hand, and “Getting back on track with some help from his friends” on the other. I can relate to the type of rollercoaster experience that comes from engaging God in an on-going journey toward a transformed life – and I’m just scratching the surface when it comes to learning that I need the help of my friends to do it effectively.

Try this exercise with me: reread this passage and see how many times in these few verses David made a behavior choice. Can you see some ‘dumb mistakes’ that you can compare with ‘transformed life’ choices? Are there any that are similar to the choices that you regularly make? There certainly are some that are familiar to me!

If there was a real-time editor of my life story, I’d be able to hear the background music as a cue to indicate when I’m making a good or bad decision. (“I want the off-key violins to start just before he asks Hushai to be his spy.”) But since the lighting effects and sounds don’t change to alert me, my application for today is to listen more closely to my wife, my friends, and my family when they try to warn me or to encourage me about the decisions that I make every day. Today perhaps you can learn with me that we don’t get to have dress rehearsals in real life!

A fellow traveler,
Dave