Abide - 1 Samuel 18
Welcome everyone. Welcome to Abide.
Jesus reminds us in Matthew 6:6: “But when you pray, go into your room, and close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
And so that's what this time is for. A time for us all to pull away, to go into a room and close the door. So I invite you now to find a place in your home, in your room, wherever you are, where you can be quiet, you can close the door. And maybe that will be sitting on the floor or sitting in a chair upright. Maybe it would feel good for you to lie down. And some even like to take a gentle walk. But take this time as we begin our prayer to find that quiet space, where you can be alone, and sit with the Father.
Whatever posture you choose, it's important that you feel relaxed and comfortable, and yet awake and alert and readied. So let's begin our time now of prayer, taking a nice deep breath in and breathing out. And you might begin to just start to notice your body. It might feel quite tense at this moment, so this is a good time just to relax your face, relax the muscles in the face. You might relax the shoulders, rolling the shoulders and allowing them to relax back and down. Begin to relax the center body, the hips, the legs, and the feet. And now that you're slowing things down, you might be able to notice where you're storing tension or tightness in the body. So this is is a wonderful time to begin to soften, to release and to let go, allowing these spaces and these parts of yourself to quiet.
And as we're in our private spaces, it's also just a good habit to allow all your busy thoughts of what you've done before this prayer time, or the activities, or the lists of things to do, that you would put those aside. And also the things that you might encounter after this prayer time, that you can put those things aside as well, and just to allow yourself to be present in this moment right now with God, with me, and with many others that are practicing right now. You also might want to imagine that Jesus is here with you, because He is.
And as you're softening your body and creating this space, begin to notice your Saviour here with you, and opening to His warmth, His presence. And most of our day we spend moving about and don't often stop, and so this is a good time to just stop and recenter your body, your mind, and your heart, and return back to your intention to abide with Jesus. To reconnect with Him, to be refreshed by Him.
During this time of prayer, you're going to get distracted. I'll just prepare you now. You'll be distracted by many, many things, and that's OK. When that happens, just gently bring yourself back into the room where you are and into the space, and into this practice of giving this time, and yourself, to Jesus. That's all. All you have to do is show up, for this time in the word, and for this time in silence, and we trust that God does amazing things with the little that we give Him.
I'd like to begin our times of prayer with a gratitude practice. And so I'd love for us all to just scan the past 24 hours, the last day. The people that you've seen. The activities you've been a part of. The conversations. The sights. The times of joy, sadness or frustration, maybe fatigue or procrastination. I'd love for you to just scan these last 24 hours and begin to notice those faces, those experiences, and take a closer look.
You might want to see where the love of God, the kindness of God, your Saviour, is hidden in these last 24 hours. Could be in the smile of a stranger, or in the silence of a room, or in a dark night sky. So I'm going to give you one minute to spend just reviewing the last 24 hours and beginning to notice where the love of God is seeking you out, and presencing itself in your midst.
You're doing great. 20 more seconds to just give this silence to God.
Wonderful, it's so good for us to pause and to look and gaze at our life. We often just consume life. We consume conversations and activities and food without even really tasting them, or hearing them, or experiencing them to the full. This is wonderful to be able to have a conversation with Jesus about the beauty and the experience of our lives. The very dailiness, the very ordinariness of it, and realize how sacred and how extraordinary our lives are, times to really soak it in and notice. So thank you for that offering and that opening of yourself to God.
We're now going to transition our time of prayer into reading the Scriptures. And if you've been tracking with me through the Abide Bible studies and retreats, this last semester and this one we are deeply in 1 & 2 Samuel, and today we get to spend time in a sweet, wonderful five verses. And these verses are about David and Jonathan, and their friendship. And just before these verses, David has been in a battle, in a war. He has just defeated Goliath. Much of life is love and war, and especially in the life of David, and so these two scenes are right next to one another. And so just notice that as we move from the defeat, the courage in the story of David and Goliath, and into the reading and the story of David and Jonathan. So we're going to be in 1 Samuel 18:1-5.
“After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. From that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return to his father's house. And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan then took off the robe he was wearing and he gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt. Whatever Saul sent him to do, David did it so successfully that Saul gave him a high rank in the army. This pleased all the people and Saul's officers as well.”
Hear this word a second time: “After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. From that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return to his father's house. And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing, and he gave it to David, along with his tunic and even his sword, his bow, and his belt. Whatever Saul sent him to do, David did it so successfully that Saul gave him a high rank in the army. And this pleased all the people and Saul's officers as well.” Just allow these words and this narrative to soak into your being.
We see in this passage that Jonathan is very impressed with David, with his courage, with his faith, his humility. It says here ‘he became one in spirit, and he loved him as himself.’ And so today we're going to get to spend some time just pondering our own friendships, and also who we are as a friend. Sometimes this can bring up about a lot of joy and gratitude, and sometimes talking about friendship can bring about disappointment, and frustration, and sorrow, and so that all belongs. And so, whatever comes to the surface for you in this time of prayer, just open it to Jesus and trust in Him with your story, and your life, and your friendships.
And so, I would invite us to reflect and look upon our friendships and our lives. Which ones have expanded your life, have helped you evolve and become more yourself? Who are those people in your life that you admire and you see the works of God in, and being in relationship with these people helps you grow to be more yourself? So I'm going to give you a few moments to think over these friends and maybe they've been different in different stages of your life. But take this moment now to have a conversation with Jesus about these beautiful friendships that have happened in your story.
Wonderful. We see here in verse 3, Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as himself. Commitments and covenants, they're not very popular in our culture today. We seem to often avoid commitments, because they might seem too confining, or may grow weary or tired of all that's required in friendship. Or maybe our needs aren't met, and so we easily just dispose of friends and people. So this commitment and this covenant between David and Jonathan is very rare and very rare in our culture. We see Jonathan giving himself over for another. We see him giving him his clothing, his robe that he's wearing. His tunic, his sword, his bow, his belt. It's almost as if he says David, ‘Come. Come be in my house and my family’. It's interesting because it seems as though Jonathan and David could easily be rivals or Jonathan could be threatened or jealous. And yet we see this humble offering of friendship, of commitment, through the life of Jonathan to David.
And we know the story in that I wonder if David would have been able to fully become himself if he didn't have Jonathan in his life. And so, I invite us all to think about our friendships and the commitment level we have to those small group of friends that are inspiring and life-giving. And how we might want to possibly enhance or up our commitment level, our willingness to have those harder conversations, or our willingness to give if we don't receive in return.
Maybe there's certain friendships that we need to work through differences, or maybe we're in different life stages. And so I ask you now for us all to just have a gentle conversation with Jesus about our commitment to our friends, and are we willing to go through the hard times? Are we willing to give of ourselves? Our tunics, our bows, our belts; to lay down our life for another. And so, spend these moments now, speaking to God about how you might want to enhance your ability to be a friend and to offer friendship.
In light of our reflections, I'll read this passage again. “After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. From that day, Saul kept David with him and did not let him return to his father's house. And Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as himself. Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, and his bow, and his belt. And whatever Saul sent him to do, David did it so successfully, that Saul gave him a high rank in the army. And this pleased all the people and Saul's officers as well.”
As I read this story, I can't help but think of Jesus and who he is as a friend. When Jonathan gives all of his clothing, and his space, and his time, and his energy to this friend, it reminds me of Jesus. Laying down all things for us, giving such great love. And it's almost as if David, as he received this such deep, intimate love, he was then able to go out and serve and become all that he was meant to be in the world. And so maybe we get a taste of this friendship with humans in this life. Maybe we can become this kind of friend and receive this kind of friendship. But ultimately, we are destined to have this intimate, loving, covenant relationship with Jesus, the presence that's sitting right next to you, where you are right now. This God, this Saviour, this friend gave everything, for you. The ultimate covenant relationship of love and sacrifice.
And so, as we sit with Jesus and we thank him for all of the meaningful friendships that we've had in our lives, the meaningful friendships we have right now, presently, and also the many meaningful relationships that are yet to come that maybe we have never even met before yet. We are thankful.
We ask Jesus that you would help us to become a deeper friend, one that sacrifices and gives and is willing to walk through and live through unsettled times. That we would be humble, and want our friends to thrive, and become all they're meant to be. May you develop each one of us to be beautiful friends, the people of this world, Lord. And Jesus, we just want to thank you that Jonathan is a beautiful example to us in our Scripture today. But Jesus you are so, so breathtaking as a friend. And so, I'd love to end our prayer practice today with a very old hymn that many of you maybe know or don't, but it's entitled ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus’ and the words are written by Joseph Scriven, and the music is by Charles Converse. And I'll just read these three verses of this song and may this be a time for you and Jesus to deepen your covenant relationship with one another and empower you to deepen those relationships in your life with the people around you.
What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
Oh, what peace we often forfeit,
Oh, what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!
Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged–
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful,
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness;
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Are we weak and heavy-laden,
Cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Saviour, still our refuge–
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?
Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In his arms, he'll take and shield thee,
Thou wilt find solace there.
So, friends, let's all just take a nice deep inhale here together in this space of the prayer, and exhale out. And in this last minute, if there's anything else that would be helpful just to release in the body, to soften in the mind, and to relax in the heart before Jesus, now in this quiet, do that now.
And so, we'll close this beautiful time of prayer saying: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Spirit. As it was in the beginning, as it is now today, and ever shall be. World without end. Amen. Go in peace, my friends.
