I’m cautious as I meditate on this chapter, since the story is about international politics, an area that has no connection with my life. As I try to personalize it, I see David extending a hand of friendship to a son whose father had been kind to him. Unfortunately, David’s act of kindness is misunderstood and rebuffed.
Those things happen in life. We extend a hand in friendship and for often unknown reasons, our kindness is rejected. Question is… “Will we extend a hand in friendship to others or will we shy away from extending ourselves because we were hurt that one time?”
It seems to me that God would have us be the kind of people who extend hands in friendship… who reach out in kindness. We cannot control the response, all we can do is control our actions.
A couple of weeks ago I preached a series of messages from Bill Hybel’s book Just Walk Across The Room. His thesis is that if we will just venture across rooms and extend hands in friendship, God may be at work and we may have opportunities to share our faith in Jesus.
Clearly God is still working on me…
Lord, open my eyes today to people who might need a kind word, a warm smile and hello and/or a hand of friendship. Help me to radiate Your love in small acts of intentional kindness to those I know and do not know… in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Addendum: Sadly, David’s act of kindness ends in war… YIKES. But I do notice that though rebuffed, David did not resort to arms until provoked. It seems that David would have been content to live disconnected from the Ammonites, let them go their way and he go his. Unfortunately, the Ammonites escalated things, twice, to the point of war. David learning of troop build up, put his army into action to protect his people…
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