Ok, so if you have been in the church any longer than a second then you know the next story by heart (or at least can paraphrase it).
1 Samuel 24. Saul has been searching for David to kill him. Saul finds himself in a cave relieving himself not realizing that David was even further back in the cave. David does not seize the opportunity to kill Saul but instead cuts off a corner of his cloak. Later walks outside to tell Saul, hey, just so you know I could have killed you in that cave but I didn't…and here is proof with a piece of your cloak. David, in doing the right thing by not killing him, caused Saul to have great remorse (for the moment) and asked that God would bless David greatly. David couldn't control Saul's feelings rather David's actions set the stage for Saul to feel that remorse. Saul had to choose that for himself (and honestly David risked Saul not responding positively but choose not to kill him anyway).
I am the oldest of 3 girls with one of my sisters having a learning disability. My entire childhood I heard, Amy, take care of your sisters, make sure Lisa is alright, watch out for her, make sure nobody teases her, make sure she gets on the bus. Watch that Sara crosses the road to Victoria's alright. Call her home, start the bath for her when she was a toddler (she is 6 years younger than me), feed them, get the bandaids and take care of her scrape…on and on it goes. I loved being in charge.
Now married with 3 of my own girls. As a mom it is engrained to make sure you take care of everything for your young kids until they can do it on their own. I could write down that very long to do list on caring for them but I do not have enough space….you get the idea. After my dad died I felt this innate responsibility as the oldest to take care of things and make sure everything was alright (now looking back I have to laugh at the ridiculous thought of trying to make death alright). Control.
As the oldest it is often your responsibility growing up to be in control of any and all the situations. It is engrained in you from your earliest memories to make sure everything is alright. Your parents call on you to take care of your siblings. Parenting, for a first born, is a natural transition because you still get to be bossy and control people and stuff. Then you begin to realize you take that into every situation you come into contact with. Your natural bent is to control and take care of situations (which, in and of itself, can be very helpful because you are deemed trustworthy and able to be counted on) but there comes a point that you realize that you are not in control of everyone else's outcomes and life. You cannot control their actions like you were raised to think you could.
At that point you have a decision to make. You can decide to get frustrated that people are not doing it like you want them to or you can let it go and realize that everyone has their own responsibility to make their own choices and decisions. Freeing really, when the reality that you are not responsible for anybody's choices, decisions and outcomes..only God is. Obviously, you can still help, give advice and opinions and work with people but ultimately people will have to make their own choices for their own lives and you cannot do that for them.
Here Saul is hunting David down to kill him and when given the opportunity to seize the day and take out his opponent, David doesn't go for it. He is only responsible for himself and not how Saul is responding. David is not responsible for Saul's irrational drive to kill him. David cannot control what Saul does or tries to do. When given the chance to kill Saul, David knew he couldn't control Saul's emotions and response. He could only control his and that is what he did. He choose to forgo the opportunity to kill the king even though he had the chance. He knew he was only responsible for what he did and not responsible for what Saul was going to do.
Liberating really when you think of it. You are not responsible for anyone else's actions…neither good or bad. When you spend your whole life making sure everyone is alright you begin to feel like it is your responsibility to make everyone's circumstance work out when in all actuality, God is responsible for outcomes and people are responsible for their own actions. It is not your job to get people to do what you think they should. You are only responsible for your life and choices and let God deal with everyone else.
