Just a couple chapters after Saul dies for not seeking God, we get David.
The Philistines hear David has been anointed king, and they come out to find him. And what does David do?
He asks God.
Should I go out to fight them? Will you hand them over to me?
It is such a contrast.
Saul went to a medium. David went to God.
And God answered him. Yes, go. I will hand them over to you.
David goes. He wins.
But the part that gets me is what he says when he comes back.
He does not strut around taking credit. He does not say look what I did. He says God did it. He used me to burst through my enemies like a raging flood.
He gave God the glory in the same breath as the victory. And the way it is written I can just hear his excitement behind God winning.
I want to be like that.
I want God to use me to burst through His enemies. I want to ask Him first, listen for the answer, move when He says move, and then come back and give Him the credit instead of acting like it was my own strength.
But the verse keeps going.
Right after that, it says David burned all the gods the Philistines had abandoned on the battlefield.
He did not just win the battle. He destroyed the false gods.
Winning was not enough.
The fake gods had to go too.
How often do we win a battle in our life, get past something hard, see God show up, and then leave the idols sitting right where they were? We celebrate the win, but we never deal with the things that pulled us away in the first place.
David did not do that.
He took the territory and then he cleaned house.
What a difference from Saul.
Saul lost his life because he would not deal with the things he should have dealt with. He kept what he was supposed to destroy. He went to sources he was not supposed to go to.
David asked God, obeyed God, gave Him the credit, and burned the rest.
Same nation. Same kind of pressure. Same enemies. Two completely different outcomes.
Because one of them kept asking God. And one of them stopped.