I hated second grade English. The subjective experience of first grade (where shapes on a page could mean anything you chose them to mean and “stay within the lines as you color” was more of a recommendation than an imperative) was thrust aside as I entered grade two.
Second grade gave rise to what would become a familiar foe throughout my adolescence: spelling tests. I refused to lay down easy; however. After failing the first test, my seven-year-old brain drew up a master plan. The morning of the test I pulled a wrinkled and frayed Ace bandage from the back corner of a bathroom drawer. With the skill of a certified athletic trainer I wound the semi-elastic cloth around my left wrist (since I’m left-handed), carefully clamped down the silver clip, and flew out the door into the early morning daylight. My plan? Well, a kid certainly can’t take a spelling test if he can’t lift his pencil, can he?
I smiled as my teacher passed out the white half-sheet of paper. She eventually made her way to my desk. Without a word I dug deep, drew out the biggest puppy dog eyes I could muster, and held up my wrapped wrist.
I’ve never asked a teacher before, but I’m relatively certain there’s a specific course in the elementary education programs of universities around the world. It’s called: “Seeing through crap students try to pull.” My epic “sprained wrist” conspiracy has been reported and is now being used as a test case of the lengths kids will go to in order to avoid taking spelling tests.
“Well Bryan,” she said before pausing and revealing a villainous grin. I suddenly knew this wasn’t going to go well for me, “If you can’t take the test with your left arm, you’ll just have to take it with your right.”
Canaanite memorial stones in Gezer
My fate was sealed: A habitual spelling test casualty through the sixth grade.
The definition of irony is the fact that I graduated college with an English major. The red felt tip horror etched on my still developing mind somehow worked to turn my heart towards words and language. In other words, sometimes you have to serve the Philistines before you can conquer them.
Please, allow me to explain.
David was anointed king (the first time) years before he actually took the throne. After Saul went nuts, David fled, eventually ending up in the land of the Philistines. David performed servant duties in the household of Achish, the king of Gath (the same city the decimated giant, Goliath, had come from). One day, David got brave:
Then David said to Achish, ‘If I have found favor in your eyes, let a place be given to me in one of the country towns, that I may dwell there. For why should your servant dwell in the royal city with you?’ So that day Achish gave him Ziklag…And the number of the days that David lived in the country of the Philistines was a year and four months (1 Sam. 27:5-6).
Over a year in the middle of nowhere, under the rod of Philistine rule. David found himself far away from his homeland and the kingdom he was meant to rule. What in the world was David doing in Ziklag?
Gezer, looking West
David’s kingdom was meant to be greater than Saul’s; encompassing the whole of the Promised Land and uniting the often times stubborn tribes that had sojourned from Egypt, through the wilderness and across the Jordan. While in Ziklag, David proved to the Southern tribes of Judah and Simeon that he was a capable leader. While protecting the Philistine frontier from marauding Amalekites, he also ensured that fragile Judah was kept out of harms way. By the time David was excused from Philistine service and returned to Judah, he had built a contingency in the South and began to piece together the beginnings of a kingdom in Hebron (also in the South). Seven years pass, Saul dies, and David is eventually recognized by the whole of the promised people as King David.
When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over Israel, all the Philistines went up to search for David… (2 Sam. 5:17).
Chances are, the Philistines taught David a lot more than Scripture tells us: battle strategies, intelligence, imperial ambitions, etc. It’s likely the Philistines, after hearing of his rise to kingship, understood David to be a severe threat to the stranglehold they held on the trade route connecting Egypt, Assyria, Babylon and Asia–a route on which they could impose heavy taxes for passage.
2 Samuel 5 provides a concise and methodical summary of David’s miraculous defeat of Philistia. The united Israelites drove the pagan invaders from the Rephaim Valley (just North of Bethlehem) all the way up to Gibeon and then West to Gezer.
We ended last week’s field study in Gezer pondering the unlikely rise of David–a wilderness wandering shepherd boy from the dusty fields East of Bethlehem. His time in Ziklag, on the arid frontiers of Philistine, were likely not what he had in mind when the prophet Samuel proclaimed him the coming king of Israel. Ziklag was a spelling test, a valley place along his sojourning through life.
How do we respond to disappointment, when an impassable chasm seems to separate us from our hearts long to see happen in our lives?
My parents divorced when I was three. It was my Ziklag on the Philistine frontier, the spelling tests of earlier years. I remember visiting childhood friends and marveling at the fact that they lived with both their parents–at the same time. Twenty years later I began serving as a youth minister at my first church. Young men started showing up at suburban coffee shops with tears in their eyes. Their parents were fighting. “Divorce” had recently been added to the family vocabulary. After telling their stories, spilling their tears, they’d lift their eyes to meet mine. Like David, I danced upon the Repheim Valley as my sling began to swing around my head. A few small stones were all I needed–divine ammunition gathered during quiet nights in college dorms, with my Bible spread out before me, courage wrought by the prayers of those who have grieved with me and prayed for me. The stones were sent into the Philistine hoard, and the foreign oppressors raced away in retreat. I’d speak of God’s faithfulness, of His longing to father us and mother us in the places where our parents are unable to, and of His unshakable nearness even when our world collapses all around us:
Buddy, I know how bad this hurts. I get that. I’ve been there. You know what? You are going to be ok. God is gonna take care of you. He hasn’t lost sight of you. He knows that you are afraid, hurt, and unsure of what’s going on. He’s the king of the universe, He pieced you together purposefully, and He loves you. And you know what? God’s big enough to take care of your parents too.
Sitting in those coffee shops, I’d spend my days chasing the Philistines out of the valley, up toward Gibeon, all the way to Gezer.
