David is more or less doing what he has to do: surviving as best he can under conditions that are decidedly uncongenial to what we’re apt to call “the spiritual life.” He doesn’t stand up in indignation against Achish, confront his Philistine culture of brutality and idolatry. He doesn’t get on his moral high horse and announce to Achish that the only way he can in good conscience serve him is as a noncombatant and offer his company’s good Samaritan experience and expertise in his service. None of that. He lives not only on the money economy of Philistine Gath but also on the moral economy.
The storyteller doesn’t say that this is the right thing to do, simply that this is what David does. And in precisely these conditions, God works out his purposes. God protects David from violating the covenant; he guards David’s faithfulness to his anointing; he works out his salvation. The primary concern of the spiritual life isn’t what we do for God but what God does for us.
...What I want to say is this: God is perfectly capable of working out his purposes in our lives even when we can’t lift a finger to help. Better yet, God is faithfully working out our salvation even when every time we lift a finger it seems to contribute to the wrong side, the Philistine side.
-Eugene Peterson, Leap Over a Wall, 98-99.
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