I Choose to Be Here

I was reading a selection from 2 Samuel today (2 Samuel 15-16) and had a thought I wanted to share. I hope that you're all in happy, wonderful places in your lives. I hope you love where you are emotionally and physically. I hope you love the place where you live. I hope you love where you are with your love life, your career, your family life, and your spiritual life. But if you don't, I hope you choose to be there anyway, at least for now. Let me explain.

In 2 Samuel 15:19-20, David says to Ittai the Gittite, "Why should you go also with us? Go back and stay with the king, for you are a foreigner and you, too, are an exile from your own country. You came only yesterday, and shall I have you wander about with us today, wherever I have to go? Return and take your brothers with you, and may the Lord be kind and faithful to you." David and his people are on the run, and he knows it is going to be difficult. He turns to the man next to him who doesn't really owe him any loyalty and essentially "lets him off the hook." David says, "Look...you don't have to come with us. It's going to be hard. I give you my blessing to turn back and leave us behind."

But what does Ittai do? You guessed it. He doesn't turn back. Instead he replies in 2 Samuel 15:21, "As the Lord lives, and as my lord the king lives, your servant shall be wherever my lord the king may be, whether for death or for life." Basically, he says, "Thanks, but I choose to be here with you, even if it is going to be difficult. Because where you are, there also is God."

That got me thinking a little bit. How often when I am "let off the hook," do I actually do as Ittai did and choose to remain in the difficult situation anyway? Not very often, I can tell you. I am much more likely to pray for a quick exit from a tough situation - and to take that exit opportunity if it comes - than to stick it out and look for God in it.

Please don't get me wrong, though. Sometimes it is necessary to get ourselves out of difficult situations. (This is especially the case if there is abuse or something going on. Please don't remain in an abusive situation.) But I am realizing that sometimes, being in a difficult situation is actually a blessing; it is a chance to find God and to choose to be with Him through thick and thin. God won't let us remain in that difficult situation forever. But perhaps if we choose to patiently stick it out with Him just a little bit longer than we otherwise would have, we will come to know Him - and to know ourselves - just a little bit better.