God Bless the Rock Throwers!

No matter who you are or what you’re involved in, no matter what you do for a living or where you go to school, nobody enjoys detractors. These seeming scoundrels seek to assassinate our hard-earned character and destroy our fan base, so to speak.

It used to be my tendency to shrug off complaints or criticisms as jealousy, envy, selfishness or any other sort of sinful characteristic that may define my accuser adequately. But here’s the thing; what if it was God himself who sent the malefactor my way?

There’s a great account of this very thing in 2 Samuel that God used early one morning several years ago to change my mind (a little) about any criticism that I might receive.

In 2 Samuel, chapter 15, we pick up on a fantastic conspiracy story where David’s son, Absalom, sought to take over the kingdom from David, but to secure such a feat would require David and his men to be killed. King David caught wind of the conspiracy and he and his men fled Jerusalem in order to avoid Absalom’s wrath. (Absalom had developed quite a following in Jerusalem)

But it’s an incident in chapter 16 that has me writing today. As David and his men were fleeing they entered a village a few miles east of Jerusalem called Bahurim, and this is where things get even more interesting. Upon his approach to Bahurim a man named Shimei began cursing David and his men while pelting them with rocks. “Get out, get out, you man of blood, you worthless man!” were the shouts of Shimei, basically calling David a murderer and a piece of trash. Why did Shimei hate David so? We don’t really know, but it’s a pretty good assumption that Shimei was reflecting his Uncle Saul’s disdain for the house of David but really had no good reason to hate David so.

One of David’s men kindly offered to go over and remove Shimei’s head, but David forbid it. Why did David endure the scorn of this nobody? Here’s the thought that prompted this whole blog: David responded to his man this way, “if he is cursing because the LORD has said to him ‘Curse David,’ who then shall say, ‘Why have you done so?’”

Wow! Can it be that God sometimes sends the cursing rock-throwers our way? What does he hope to accomplish by allowing that? Well, for me, when I most needed it a few years back, what God accomplished in me with this story was that it gave me peace and perspective. It turned my mind away from seeing two people in a particular situation as agents of satan and allowed me to think of them as tools of God, being used to make me better. Did it hurt? Yes. Did I like it? No. Did it help me pray for my enemies? Yes, and that is one of the Christ-like traits God desires to develop in me.

So how about you? Are you willing to leave room for God, not just to protect you from your accusers, but also to be the One who allows your accusers to berate, slander and tear you down if the ultimate end is for you to become more like Jesus?
If so, there’s good news: the world has no shortage on accusers. You get the life-long learning plan!

God knows our hearts and loves us anyway. He knows our lack, our failures and our thoughts and words even before we think or say them. He knows we’re bad people, much more so than our accusers do.

So I’ll leave you with this thought from Charles Spurgeon:

“Brother, if any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him; for you are worse than he thinks you to be. If he charges you falsely on some point, yet be satisfied, for if he knew you better he might change the accusation, and you would be no gainer by the correction. If you have your moral portrait painted, and it is ugly, be satisfied; for it only needs a few blacker touches, and it would be still nearer the truth.”