“Amen!” Benaiah son of Jehoiada replied. “May the Lord, the God of my lord the king, decree that it happen. And may the Lord be with Solomon as he has been with you, my lord the king, and may he make Solomon’s reign even greater than yours!” — I Kings 1:1-53

While at a celebration of life service, I heard much about the man we were there to remember.

The stories carried a common thread.

Most life stories do.

The thread that many had observed in his life was faithfulness.

While he was certainly not perfect, he demonstrated in many ways over the long haul that he was faithful. He kept his word and fulfilled his obligations.

I was both encouraged and challenged by his example.

If you’re a king and you’re assembling your bodyguard, it’s imperative to put the most loyal, trustworthy and fierce man you can find to be in charge.

For David, this man’s name was Benaiah.

One snowy day, he jumped in a pit with a lion to apparently sharpen his fighting skills or maybe just for fun.

He was a legendary warrior.

No one who challenged him lived to talk about it.

He was pivotal in King David’s ability to reign and his ability to appoint his son Solomon as the next king.

We may not be in line to be picked for the Roman praetorian guard, but we have been called and empowered by Jesus to stand faithful to God and his people.

We are to be loyal to others whose hearts are set on Jesus.

Likewise, we are to seek out others who will stand with us and for us as we follow God’s leading in our lives.

We are to both be a Benaiah and to have one.

Victory and defeat

When all the kings with Hadadezer saw they had been defeated by Israel, they surrendered to Israel and became their subjects. … In the spring when kings normally go out to war … David stayed behind in Jerusalem. — 2 Samuel 10:1-11:27

I love watching sports with my family and friends.

The fun is in being together watching the people who are the very best at what they do.

Recently, a basketball game came down to a last-second shot that barely made it to the rim only to be immediately put back in by a teammate to win the game in an absolute stunner.

The only thing more stunning was this same team being absolutely trounced by the same opponent the very next game.

David found himself in a fight he did not start, nor did he want.

The new Ammonite king took bad advice and it cost him his kingdom.

In spite of the addition of mercenaries, David and his men defeated them soundly.

And yet, even before the ink of his victory dried on the manuscript, he is caught up in adultery, deception and conspiracy to commit murder.

His victory appears to have set him up for defeat.

Why do so many, men in particular, cave relationally, morally and spiritually after great victories?

David loved God.

He loved his people.

He was a warrior.

He was a noble king.

What happened?

There’s an extreme danger as it’s revealed here in “staying behind.”

If we aren’t moving forward, we’re moving backward.

It doesn’t mean not to rest.

It does mean, however, that everything is to something, even rest.

In Jesus’ words, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.”

Struck by lightning

As he was approaching Damascus on this mission, a light from heaven suddenly shone down around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?” — Acts 9:1-25

As my wife sat nervously with a few of the high school girls in one of the tents set up for a retreat she was leading, the Indiana summer thunderstorm raged on.

Lightning, thunder and driving rain made it impossible to sleep and virtually impossible to hear each other’s voices.

And then, “Boom!” the lightning and thunder hit at the exact same moment.

Pieces of a glowing nearby tree hit their tents.

With flashlights on, every one of the girls’ hair was sticking straight up in the air!

Saul truly believed he was doing God a favor by persecuting followers of Jesus.

He was a religionist of the highest order.

He was a hard-core traditionalist who vehemently rejected any Messiah except the one he had framed in his own mind.

This Jesus was a fraud and his followers were liars and deceivers and must be stopped.

Nothing short of being “struck by lightning” could move this man from his brutal quest.

Down fell Saul. Up rose Paul.

While God’s plans for Saul required this extremely unusual and dramatic intervention, this ending of one person and the arrival of another is exactly what Jesus meant for all of us when he said, “You must be born again.”

Only God can make us anew.

It’s not a rehabilitation. It’s not a transformation. It’s not an education. It’s not a realization.

It’s a death and a new birth.

It’s being struck by the lightning of God’s saving grace.

We simply cannot be the same once we truly embrace it.

Tom Wiles is senior minister of Fall Creek Christian Church in Pendleton. He can be reached at 765-778-3166.