Happy Resurrection Sunday, everyone!
Today I read 1 Samuel 18-20.
And in today's reading, Saul got so angry with David, that he tried to kill him...repeatedly. But Jonathan, Saul's son, loved David like a brother. Actually, better than a brother. Jonathan and David loved each other like their own selves.
Which, by the way, is what Jesus tells us we should do with our neighbors (everyone is our neighbor).
Matthew 22:37-39 - And He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"
So, before Jesus instructed it, David and Jonathan were already doing this. Even though Jonathan had every reason to hate David - he was God's next anointed king, and the man who would take the throne away from his father, and by extension, himself - he didn't. Rather, his friendship with David was so great that he risked his own life, and his father's anger, to warn David of Saul's plots against his life.
Now, that's a friend. No jealousy. No hatred. Absolute loyalty.
To be that kind of a friend, someone has to have completely surrendered to God's will. Jonathan knew that his father had messed up, but he could still have ranted about how he would be a better king than his father, about how he might make a better king than David. But he didn't. He submitted entirely to God's will, and became David's closest friend.
Now, I know I'm not nearly the kind of friend I need to be. I should try to follow Jonathan's example better.
Even though I love my friends, and even though I would never let anyone hurt them if I could help it, I am far from surrendering so completely to God's will that I never get upset with them, or jealous of them.
I haven't quite reached the place of loving them as I love myself. But it's something I strive for.
Personally, I need to take a lesson from Jonathan.
David was going to take the throne, the birthright that Jonathan had expected until his father lost it. And still Jonathan submitted to God's will, and became David's best friend.
And the only thing he asked of David, when he was warning him of one of Saul's plots, was that David remember his household when he became king, so that their friendship would last long after his death.
Isn't that beautiful?
We should all strive to be a Jonathan friend.
I hope you'll join me tomorrow when I read 1 Samuel 21-24.
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