Semi-Random Musings (42)

Some people are naturally more reactive than others, but everybody has moments in which their words and actions are the product of pure emotion rather than common sense, let alone real wisdom. A few days ago, we posted here about David’s very public emotional reaction to the death of his son Absalom at the hand of David’s nephew Joab, the commander of Israel’s army, in violation of the king’s own edict to keep the rebel safe. It was the natural reaction of a loving father, but the optics were horrible coming from a head of state in whose cause many loyal men had just fought and died.

Thankfully, David had time for a sober second thought or two, or at least so it seems.

Fast forward to 1 Kings 2. When David knows his time is upon him, he instructs his son and heir Solomon to wrap up several matters he has deferred acting upon for years, including finally settling the score with cousin Joab. It’s notable that when either David or Solomon lists Joab’s offences, they begin and end with the murders of two army commanders with whom, at different times, David might have replaced Joab, two men Solomon refers to as “more righteous and better than himself”. In the case of Abner’s murder, Joab could make the argument that he killed him to avenge his brother’s death at Abner’s hand in a time of civil war, but we cannot ignore the fact that he probably saved his own job in the process, which a canny operator like Joab surely recognized he had endangered on more than one occasion. Despite the family connection, David may well have offered Joab’s position to Abner at his next provocation, of which there would be more than a few.

All that in view, despite loving his traitorous offspring far more than either of Joab’s other victims, David never includes Absalom’s execution among his nephew’s offences against him. Why not?

I like to think it was that sober second thought. For all that Joab was a hard man, he was a pragmatist, and he understood that Israel could never be united again under David if Absalom were left alive. He had won the hearts of most of the people, and the army he had gathered was willing to fight to the death for him. He was charismatic, handsome and young, and he was also an unscrupulous traitor to the crown who had ripped the nation in half and caused the deaths of many. So Joab did what had to be done.

I like to think David eventually understood that Joab was acting loyally and in his uncle’s best interests at that moment. At very least, David declined to hold Absalom’s death against him.

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Theories of causation run the gamut between two extremes. At one end, the atheist says every occurrence in the universe is random or, alternatively, that every occurrence was predestined forever by the “Big Bang” (the Butterfly Effect writ very, very large). At the other end, the superstitious believer insists three words answer every question about causation ever asked: “God did it.” Either way, human choice plays no intelligent or decisive part.

Somewhere in between, I believe, there exists a more biblical position, one that acknowledges the sovereignty of God alongside and operating through (or in spite of) the genuine agency of human beings, the ordinary operations of the natural world, and the machinations of the powers and principalities that often play havoc with us behind the scenes. The trick, I believe, is not to waste too much time assigning praise or blame for the individual twists and turns that affect our lives negatively, but to adopt a big picture view of the goal to which God, in his sovereignty, is working away.

When I look back on so many events in my own experience that initially appeared distressing, I find they frequently served to prevent some greater evil that may have otherwise have occurred. For example, cars break down occasionally. That’s just life. When a part begins to deteriorate, at bare minimum an inconvenience at some future date becomes inevitable. The key is in the timing. A bit of car trouble traveling at 20 mph on a side street near home is a minor annoyance. It might have posed a much more serious problem if it happened in bad weather at 65 mph way down the highway on a Sunday morning where there’s no safe place to pull over and when, even if you do, the local tow services are not answering the phone. We may bluster at the lesser problem when we encounter it unexpectedly, or we may choose to give thanks for what it might have preserved us from, depending on whether our perspective on it is natural or biblical. Balaam could not see what was causing his donkey to misbehave, but she was trying to save her master’s life. It would have been more appropriate for the prophet to direct his ire at himself.

Or let’s take something more dire: a sickness that results in death. The fact is that we are all going sometime, as is everyone we love. Grief is appropriate when we lose someone we care about, but so many of us, saved and unsaved, find ourselves asking questions for which we can receive no answer in this life: “Why him?”, “Why her?” and especially “Why would God do this?” Such queries move us into mental territory that is inevitably unproductive and ultimately futile. The thing itself was going to happen one day regardless of our preferences, prayers or earnest desires, often not so very far into the future. What’s interesting, once again, is the timing. It’s not impossible the Lord was doing something through a death two, five or ten years earlier than we’d have liked that could not have been accomplished in the same way through a later exit. We cannot be sure what, but the perspective we adopt on the unknown will determine whether we give thanks or break down in a crisis of faith.

We could multiply such examples almost infinitely. The limitations of our knowledge make us ill equipped to probe the causes of events that frustrate or grieve us when they take place, but we are even less able to quantify what might or might not have happened had they not occurred when they did. What’s important is that we remember that the “good” for which God works all things together is our ultimate good by his perfect standards, not our momentary pleasure.