David has barely settled into Jerusalem when the Philistines come looking for him. They could tolerate a king ruling a divided Judah from Hebron. They cannot tolerate a united Israel under one throne, so they gather in the Valley of Rephaim to crush the new kingdom before it can stand. Before he moves a single soldier, David asks. 19"Shall I go up against the Philistines? Will you give them into my hand?"
Compare that with Saul. Saul offered a sacrifice he had no right to offer instead of waiting for Samuel. Saul swore a rash oath in the middle of a battle already under way. At the end, when the LORD would no longer answer him, Saul went to a medium (1 Samuel 28). David faces the kind of threat that broke Saul's reign, and he does the thing Saul rarely did. He stops, asks, and waits for an answer before he acts.
The first answer is simple. 19"Go up, for I will certainly give the Philistines into your hand." David goes and wins, and he gives the credit away in the name he gives the place. 20"The LORD has broken through my enemies before me like a breaking flood." David reaches past his own strategy and his soldiers' courage for a single picture, a flood breaking through with David standing where it broke. The Philistines flee and leave their idols behind, the gods they carried into battle expecting protection, now dropped like baggage too heavy to run with.
Then they come again. Same valley, same enemy, the same threat as before. David asks again, and this time the answer is different. 23"You shall not go up; go around to their rear." He is to circle behind them and wait for a strange sign, the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees. Only when he hears that sound is he to move. Two nearly identical situations get two different instructions, and David follows each one exactly as given. He does not assume that a tactic that worked once will work again. Dependence on God is a relationship you keep returning to, one situation at a time. The last answer may not match this one.
The sign itself is remarkable. It is a sound moving through the treetops before David can see a single enemy. It tells him the LORD has already gone ahead into a fight David has not yet joined. His task is to notice the victory already underway and step into it. Waiting for that sound is itself an act of faith, because it means refusing to charge ahead of the God who insists on going first.
The result carries the Philistines all the way from Geba to Gezer. Every step of that long retreat traces back to two moments at the start when David chose to ask and did not assume.
Think of a situation in your life that looks like one you have faced before. Do not assume the answer that worked last time. Ask again, then listen for where God has already gone ahead.
Prayer
Father, forgive us for charging ahead on your past answer without asking again. Teach us David's patience, to ask before we act, to listen for you already at work, and to follow what you give today and not what worked before. Thank you that you go before your people still. In Jesus' name, amen.