Darrell~Driven Like David

And Saul said, Bring a burnt offering to me, and peace offerings. And he offered the burnt offering……And Samuel said, What have you done? And Saul said….The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication unto the Lord: I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering. And Samuel said to Saul, You have done foolishly… you have not kept that which the Lord commanded you. 1Samuel 13:9-14

 

 

The Lord has bestowed upon me an honor, but not without cost. When the Lord showed me that he had called me as a minister in my father’s place, I knew it was because he had rebelled against his calling. What was shown to me recently was that now I must minister to people that my dad should have. Only this morning, in reading in 1Samuel, have I realized the severity of his disobedience, and the negative impact it has made on lives not yet changed, that he was responsible for.

 

I have a cousin, Darrell, who is seven years my senior-he is 54, and has spent all of his adult life drinking. His three children, the oldest of which is 35, will not have anything to do with him. He has grandchildren that he has never seen. He has twelve brothers and sisters, most who live close to him, but he says they have disowned him. Two sisters, and their families, pass right by his house every Sunday and Wednesday to go to church. Another three sisters that live within a dozen miles are pastors’ wives, but they also have disowned him. His mother died this past year, and that just gives him the excuse to drink all the more.

Up until two weeks ago, I had not seen Darrell since the mid-80’s, when I babysat the older two of his three girls. Vanessa, mentioned above, was 3 when I kept them that summer. His first marriage fell apart, apparently not long after that. He has been married to a woman for the last ten years that is addicted to prescription pain medicine. He does not own his own home; he barters his rent by working for his landlord in a small nursery. Most mornings, breakfast is 3-4 beers, lunch the same, and his day is over by about 3pm.

 

 

He once owned his own trucking company, and was a long-distance truck driver, until he had his driver’s license-both personal and professional-revoked permanently, for drinking and driving. He has lived a demoralized life the last 20+ years, jumping from one relationship to another, and uses what little money he gets for beer and cigarettes. It is a sad life. We know that the drinking is covering some deep-rooted pain that, with guidance from the Holy Spirit, we hope to expose, which will put him on the road to healing.

 

What makes it worse is something I remember him saying all those years ago, when my dad had first resigned his position as pastor, at a critical time in Darrell’s life. He said he knew that it was my dad that was supposed to help him turn his life over to the Lord. My dad has done nothing toward fulfilling that prophecy.

Two week ago, the Lord led us to a place in western North Carolina to minister. It is not a coincidence that Darrell is our neighbor while we are here, and we see him almost everyday. My husband, who is fully aware of the above back-story, has been talking to him, coaxing him into ‘Godly’ conversations. Darrell is kindhearted, willing to help-would give a person the shirt off his back. He still has the heart that God wants to use, but he is driven to drink, resulting from bad decisions in the past that still haunt him.

This morning, as I sat on the computer, looking through scripture, this verse jumped out at me:….If the Lord have stirred you up against me, let him accept an offering: but if they be the children of men, cursed be they before the Lord; for they have driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, Go, serve other gods. (1Samuel 26:19)

 

 

Darrell adamantly claims his salvation at age 13, and we have no reason to doubt that. The Lord knows his own, just like he knew David. He had Samuel anoint him king, yet David spent approximately the next 14 years of his life running from Saul, the crowned king of Israel, because he sought to kill him. I look back over Darrell’s life, and remember the judgments that have come out of my dad’s mouth, as well as other family members, against him, and realize they are partially to blame for driving Darrell away from church, and his Godly heritage.

 

And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul: there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines.….And David arose, and he passed over with the six hundred men that were with him unto Achish, the son of Maoch, king of Gath…..And it was told Saul that David was fled to Gath: and he sought no more again for him. (1Samuel 27:1-4)

 

The difference between Darrell and David is that in David’s story, he was able to go on and be king at the death of Saul. For Darrell, he doesn’t know that ‘Saul’ is ‘dead’, and is still on the run for his life. We are here on a completely different Godly assignment, but we know that He lets nothing go to waste, and I pray that by the time we leave here that a change will be made in Darrell’s life.

I sorrowfully wonder how many other people are out there-in a place where the cares of life, and bitter struggles with substance abuse-have tainted their relationship with God, while waiting for the person that God ‘assigned’ to them, but that person has fallen into disobedience? I would like to think that Darrell is in a class all by himself, but our journey to 35 different churches the past three years has proved otherwise.

Disobedience is rampant, and the enemy is sitting back, laughing, because he thinks he has won. I pray whoever reads this will take inventory of their spiritual life, and see where any disobedience lies. A person’s life might depend on it.