Whole-Hearted Worship

Well, now that I've finally gotten back into my quiet time and reading my study on Women of the Bible, here's a neat thing I'm seeing this week. The "woman of the week" is Michal, Saul's daughter and David's wife.

1 Samuel 18:20 Now Saul's daughter Michal was in love with David, and when they told Saul about it, he was pleased.

1 Samuel 18:27 David and his men went out and killed two hundred Philistines. He brought their foreskins and presented the full number to the king so that he might become the king's son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal in marriage.

Interlude of many years where they are separated, Michal becomes the wife of another man, and then David becomes king and demands her back...

2 Samuel 6:16 As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart.

2 Samuel 6:20-23 When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, "How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!"
21 David said to Michal, "It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD's people Israel—I will celebrate before the LORD. 22 I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor."
23 And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.


Is this the same woman? What's going on? Wow! Yes, it is the same woman. She loved David when they married, she wanted David, and she saved David's life (from her father, Saul). Then they are separated and all we hear is that Saul gives her to another man. When David finally does come back for her, she is not happy and thankful about it, but appears to have become a bitter woman (and who really knows why, perhaps she was mad that David took so long, or perhaps she loved her new husband, or perhaps she was just tired of being a pawn for all these men, who knows...)

So, David brings the ark of the Lord back.....pretty exciting time for Israel. David knows this is a miracle of God, a blessing to Israel, and he openly worships God with wild abandon.....all else is forgotten as he dances and praises in the presence of his loving Abba

And Michal looks out the window and what does she see....she sees her man making a fool of himself (that's what SHE sees). Why wasn't she down there rejoicing with him, why wasn't she sitting at the window, at least, and praising God in her own way......no, she did none of that. She looked with scorn at her husband. She looked with bitter eyes rather than eyes of love, she judged her husband according to her own bitter heart. And she suffered for it.....no children, no legacy. Ouch!

Who are you? Are you David, worshipping with pure delight and wild abandon before God? Or are you Michal, looking with scorn on those who have a truly intimate relationship with the Father, and pouring out that bitterness on others?

Father God, I pray for a pure heart, eyes that see only You. Abba, You alone are my heart's desire, may my life be an expression of my love for You!