Undivided Attention
This summer I’ve been leaning into the story of one the most celebrated characters in all of scripture.
David was known for a lot of things. From defeating a giant named Goliath to being defeated by other giants in his life. But when all was said and done, he has been remembered throughout history as a man after God’s own heart.
A man after God’s own heart.
What does it mean to be, what does it look like to be, a man, a woman, AFTER God’s own heart?
It might be helpful to start with this question…
When was the last time you gave someone your undivided attention?
The 1990s Changed My Life
A lot of things happened in the 1990s.
Maybe you remember the 90s and how The All-New Mickey Mouse Club kicked off it’s sixth season in 1993 with Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera and Ryan Gosling.
Or how, for the very first time, you could super-size your fries at McDonalds!
Or how we all made new FRIENDS as Rachel, Phoebe, Ross, Monica, Chandler, and Joey came on our TV screens each week!
It was in the 90s when Disney released Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992) and Lion King (1994), three of my personal all time favorite Disney movies that still hold up!
And perhaps most importantly, Google was born!
A lot of things happened in the 90s that changed our lives forever. But what I’ll remember about the 90s that changed my life forever is that it was in the 90s when Alisha and I first met!
We met at college and within the first three weeks of school we had started dating and we’ve never stopped. Outside of my relationship with Jesus Christ, my relationship with my wife is the most important relationship in my life.
But you know how this goes, when you’re young and in love everything is exciting and fun. You talk on the phone for hours every night. About what? I have no idea.
We had started dating and we were spending every free moment together. It was no problem giving Alisha my undivided attention. It was all I wanted to do!
Until… until that moment came when somehow, we ran out of words. We ran out of things to talk about. And it got real quiet.
Have you ever been there? Ever felt that awkward silence with someone you really care about and get concerned about the fact that you’ve ran out of things to talk about?
I remember being really worried at first. And I could see that she was, too. At some point we acknowledged the awkward silence and kind of laughed about the fact that we had run out of things to talk about. But then it hit me, it’s ok.
I am completely comfortable being alone with you in silence.
Disquiet in the Quiet
Most of us are uncomfortable with silence. And most of us are uncomfortable being together with someone else in silence. Most of us are so uncomfortable that we’ll avoid awkward silence at any cost.
And this creates a real problem when it comes to our relationships.
When it comes to true friendship. When it comes to deep intimacy. When it comes to real relationship. Because the byproduct of avoiding being together without words, the byproduct of avoiding wasting time together and not needing to fill the void of silence, is that we never give anyone our undivided attention.
We have built in escape hatches all around us so if there’s a hint of discomfort, if there’s even a moment of silence, we reach for distraction. We reach for our phones. We reach for the remote.
We over schedule our lives so that we’re always busy and never have downtime. We surround ourselves with crowds of people in real life and online so that we never have to feel alone even though deep down we do.
We are not comfortable being alone with another person in silence. We don’t know how to give another person our undivided attention. So we’re unable to experience real relationship, real intimacy. We can have a thousand friends but always feel alone.
When was the last time you gave someone your undivided attention?
Two Kinds of Kings
When was the last time you gave God your undivided attention?
David was known for, he was remembered for being a man AFTER God’s own heart. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve often wondered… what does that even mean? What does that even look like?
What would it mean for you to be, for me to be, a man after God’s own heart? A woman after God’s own heart?
This is how David is described in 1 Samuel 13.14.
At this point in the story, Saul is king. In fact, we haven’t even learned about David yet. He doesn’t even arrive on the scene until I Samuel 16. So we’ve got three more chapters before we even start his story. We talked about this a few weeks ago, but Samuel anoints David in 1 Samuel 16. David faces Goliath in 1 Samuel 17.
David becomes king, finally, in 2 Samuel 2. And at that point, he’s just king of Judah because the kingdom is divided. Then, finally, in 2 Samuel 5 David becomes king over all of Israel. A kingdom reunited under his reign.
But before any of that, when David was only an elementary aged boy, God had his eye on David.
Saul was 30 years old when he became king. And Saul would reign as king for some 42 years.
Saul’s persistent problem was his disobedience. At every turn he seemed to turn away from God, take matters into his own hands, and rationalize every decision he made as if he had done nothing wrong.
I don’t know if you’ve ever done that or know anyone like that!
Saul’s Disobedience
In 1 Samuel 13 Israel is at war with the Philistines once again. Saul’s son Jonathan has led a group of Israel’s troops into battle at Geba and won. So Saul sends word of their victory in this one battle to all of Israel and calls for everyone who can fight to come join the army.
But even with every able bodied man joining Saul’s army, they would be outnumbered and overmatched against the Philistine army. Just listen to the shear size and strength of the Philistine army as they gather their troops to respond to Israel’s small victory at Geba.
1 Samuel 13.5-7
The Philistines mustered a mighty army of 3,000 chariots, 6,000 charioteers, and as many warriors as the grains of sand on the seashore! They camped at Micmash east of Beth-aven.
In other words, the Philistines are about to unload on Saul and the little Israelite army. They have poked the bear! And the Israelite army immediately senses that they are in a precarious spot!
The men of Israel saw what a tight spot they were in; and because they were hard pressed by the enemy, they tried to hide in caves, thickets, rocks, holes, and cisterns. Some of them crossed the Jordan River and escaped into the land of Gad and Gilead.
Everybody in Israel is trembling in fear. And Saul sees it. He sees the fear rising. He feels the fear rising in his own heart.
He’s waiting on Samuel, the prophet of God to come and offer a sacrifice to the LORD and ask for God’s help, God’s presence, and God’s blessing before they go into battle against the Philistines. But Samuel hasn’t come. He waited for a day. One day turned into two. Two turned into three. It’s been a week and Samuel hasn’t come.
They don’t have another prophet to turn to who can offer the sacrifice. The Philistines are surrounding them and the battle is going to begin any minute. Saul is afraid. He’s desperate. And that fear and anxiety leads him directly into disobedience.
And what does disobedience look like in this moment: impatience and taking matters into his own hands.
Saul is a king, he’s not a priest. He’s not a prophet. He’s a king. And he’s not just any king. He’s the king of Israel. He’s a king of the Jews. And the Jews ultimately only have one King. The LORD Almighty.
Any human king, any earthly king, any king chosen to be king of Israel serves under the Kingship of the LORD. And when you choose to ignore the LORD, when you become afraid and impatient, when you take matters into your own hands, when you refuse to wait on God, when you stop trusting in God and instead do whatever you think is best, there will always be consequences.
Samuel arrives in town right as Saul finishes making a sacrifice to the LORD. It was the right impulse, but it was not Saul’s place. Samuel smells the sacrifice, he sees the smoke rising, and he knows immediately what Saul has done. Saul’s disobedience, fear, impatience, and disregard for God in this moment will be the tipping point that leads to his ultimate demise.
Disobedience that Led to Saul’s Ultimate Demise
Samuel tells Saul:
“You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you. Had you kept it, the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom must end, for the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart. The LORD has already appointed him to be the leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD’s command.” – 1 Samuel 13.13-14
“The LORD has sought out a man AFTER his own heart.”
At this point in the story, we haven’t even met David yet. We don’t even know his name.
But God does. Before David was anointed, he was chosen and appointed.
And why did God choose David to be the next king, to be the king through whom one day the Savior of the world would come?
Was it because David was perfect? Nope!
Was it because he had it all together and all figured out? Not at all.
Was it because he was somehow better than Saul? Not really.
But what we do see in the life of David is that over and over again, he truly was a man AFTER God’s own heart.
The Lord Looks at the Heart
When he’s anointed by Samuel in Bethlehem, God told Samuel he wasn’t looking for the tallest, strongest, oldest son of Jesse to anoint and appoint as the next king of Israel. Remember what God said?
“The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” – 1 Samuel 16.7
When you fast forward to the New Testament, this is exactly how David is remembered a thousand years later by the Jewish people and by those first century Christians… as a “man after God’s own heart.” – Acts 13.22
Why was David called a man AFTER God’s own heart?
I would suggest that the primary reason David is known, remembered, and called a man after God’s own heart is because throughout his life he practiced giving God his undivided attention.
David understood how important it was to spend uninterrupted time in the presence of God. He was called a man after God’s own heart because he was after God’s own heart. He was in pursuit of the heart of God.
Not always. Not perfectly.
There was plenty of failure in David’s life. But the life of David reminds us that we are not defined by our greatest momentary failure but by our lifelong pursuit. And David is defined, remembered, as someone who was in pursuit of the heart of God.
Giving God Your Undivided Attention
How can you pursue the heart of God? How can you give God your undivided attention?
How did David do it?
David was known as a man of PRAYER:
Psalm 5.1-2
O Lord, hear me as I pray;
pay attention to my groaning.
Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God,
for I pray to no one but you.
You see it throughout the story of David as well as in the psalms of David, David spent massive amounts of time in PRAYER. And if you want to be a person after the heart of God, you may want to learn to pray.
The good news is that there are many ways to pray. And what is most important in prayer is giving God your undivided attention. It’s being comfortable sitting in silence and solitude with God.
Sometimes when we pray we use words, but sometimes we don’t. We just practice being in his presence. We’re mindful that he is with us.
However you pray, whenever you pray, if you want to be a man, a woman, after the heart of God you have to find a way to practice prayer.
David was known as a man who FASTED:
In one of the most desperate situations in his life, when the child that was born as a result of his sin with Bathsheba was going to die, David fasted.
2 Samuel 12.16: “[David] went without food and lay all night on the bare ground.”
Three times in the psalms this idea of fasting before the Lord comes up and each time, it is in a psalm of David.
David practiced the spiritual discipline of fasting. The practice of denying oneself physically so that one can fully rely on God spiritually.
Fasting is the practice of denying ourselves so that we can learn to fully rely on God so that when we suffer in the world, when life isn’t fair, when things don’t go our way we will have already trained our hearts, our minds, our bodies to trust God and fully rely on Him.
If we haven’t fasted and practiced self denial, we may become entitled, we may be tempted to complain when we suffer or don’t get our way. The way of Christ is the way of suffering, the way of self-sacrifice and total reliance on God.
David was known as a man with a heart for WORSHIP:
Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness.
Let the whole world know what he has done.
Sing to him; yes, sing his praises.
Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds.
Worship the Lord in all his holy splendor.
– 1 Chronicles 16.8-9; 29
The truth is, we become like what we behold. We become like what we give our undivided attention to.
Worship reminds us who we are, who we are not, and who God is. And we are all worshippers. The way we worship reveals the way we see God, and consequently, the way we see ourselves.
David was a worshiper. And his worship to God communicated his love for God, his reverence for God, and his desire for God.
What does your worship communicate to God? What do you want it to communicate to God? How would you worship if God was in the room? By the way, God is in the room!
The Practice of Pursuit
These are just three of the spiritual practices see in the life of David. There are others. All of them help us give our undivided attention to God so that we can become men, women, after the heart of God. Each of them put us in position to become more like Jesus.
What if you got serious about being a man, a woman who was AFTER the heart of God? Someone who practices pursuing the heart of God?
What spiritual practices help you give God your undivided attention?
You may say, I’m not good at prayer. Or, I can’t fast. But all of these things take practice and no one is good at them at first. Give yourself grace. Give yourself time. Start small. And remember, they’re called practices because you have to practice them. It’s not about doing anything perfectly, it’s about consistently pursuing the heart of God.
It’s about taking time to….
Give God your undivided attention.
When you pursue the heart of God what you discover is that he’s always been pursuing your heart.
When you go after the heart of God what you realize is that he’s always been after yours.
This is what happens when you give God your undivided attention.
What if we did this?
What if we practiced the presence of Jesus for a few minutes every day? How would that change our lives? Change your church? What would it be like to gather as a church on Sunday for collective worship after spending time each day individually in worship?
How would our stress level collectively drop, how would the presence of peace among us rise, how would our love and compassion for one another grow, how would our community flourish IF we regularly pursued the heart of God?
This week, may you be a man, a woman, AFTER the heart of God. Pursuing the heart of God. And may you remember, He is already pursuing you.
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