Stubborn Love

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God 

I’m going to use a word that typically isn’t combined with love, but I think fits perfectly — stubborn love. That’s how I see King David’s heart, filled with stubborn love. In Psalm 78, we read that David led his people with integrity of heart. The Hebrew word implies that his heart was undivided. We might say today, he wasn’t fickle. His heart was loyal, like a shepherd that loved his sheep even when they were obstinate. 

That kind of stubborn love was demonstrated in his interaction with King Saul. Saul was pathologically jealous of David. He was tormented that David was esteemed more highly than he was. It got so bad that on several occasions, he tried to kill David. What amazes me is that through all of it, David had a stubborn love for Saul. On two different occasions he could have killed Saul, and justifiably so, but he refused to do it. And when Saul eventually died, he lamented, “How the mighty have fallen,” then he wept and fasted for him. 

Where did those tears come from? How could he find the tears for Saul? He, better than anyone, knew Saul’s faults, yet he loved him to the very end. That is stubborn love. 

It was said of David that he was a man after God’s own heart [Acts 13.22]. That is something to ponder as we start the weekend. God loves you more than you know. His is an everlasting love, it endures forever. That’s stubborn love.

So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands. Psalm 78.72