Best For Thee Or Best For Me?

Sometimes we must consider if what we are doing is only best for us, or best for God’s people.   #daybydaylw   Interested in learning more about becoming a devoted follower of Christ? Go to follow.lifeword.org!   ~~~   Chapter 18 begins with David dividing up his troops and setting over them leaders and commanders. The three most prominent leaders are Joab, Abishai, and Ittai. You will remember Joab and Abishai from early on in 2 Samuel. Both of these men are nephews of David, sons of his sister. Ittai was introduced to us in chapter 15 as one who would be loyal to David come what every may come. And we see some back and forth as to whether it would be good for David to go out to war with them. David wants to go with them, but his commanders say it would be better if he did not. His life was too valuable to the overall welfare of the kingdom, so he needed to stay behind and run point from a safer place than the front lines. David acquiesces, but his relenting comes with a little caveat, that I believe shows us his true intention as to why he wanted to go to the front lines to begin with. Would he do what is best for the kingdom of Israel, or would he do what he thought best for his son Absalom? And this is where we run into our conflict, or tension of the story that we will study this week.