How Many David's Are There?

1 Samuel 21-25

That period of time between Samuel's anointing of David as King of Israel until he actually ascended to the throne was a rough time for David. To be fair, most of us wouldn't have handled as well as David, but David was all over the map character-wise. In these five chapters we meet the following Davids...

• David the Deceiver... as he meets with Ahimelech the priest of Nob, David deceives the priest into giving him sacred food and a weapon. Saul later kills all of the priests of Nob because of this.
• David the Madman... as he went to the King of Gath for asylum, David pretended to be insane
• David the Leader... as he led a ragtag group of 400 men
• David the Courageous... as he swooped into Keilah and saved the town from the Philistines 
• David the Listener... as he left Keilah after having saved it because the Lord told him the the townsmen would sacrifice his men even though they saved the town
• David the Loyal... as he made a pact with Jonathan
• David the Cautious... as he goes out to the wilderness to evade Saul
• David the Righteous... as he allowed Saul to go free when he could have killed him because Saul was still the Lord's anointed one
• David the Unrighteous... as he rode out to kill Nabal and all his men for not paying him protection money
• David the Wise... as he heeds Abigail's advice in not killing Nabal
• David the Unwise... as he marries another woman after just having wed Abigail when Nabal dies suddenly.

When our actions and character swing from righteousness to unrighteousness, from wise to stupid, from courageous to cautious, one thing is probably certain... we are following our own path instead of God's. David needed the time at Adullam between the anointing and the coronation to become a man after God's own heart... to get into the habit of consistently seeking after God's will, instead of his own. Where is our Adullam?