Two verses at the seam of this chapter turn the book on its axis. 13"The Spirit of the LORD rushed upon David from that day forward," and Samuel goes home. 14"Now the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the LORD tormented him." The same chapter that anointed a shepherd boy in secret now shows in plain view what it looks like when God's presence lifts from a man who has spent chapter after chapter choosing his own will over God's word. It is the LORD's response to a heart that had repeatedly turned away.
Saul's servants sense what is happening: 15"A harmful spirit from God is tormenting you." The text will not let this be coincidence, a bad mood, or ordinary melancholy detached from anything spiritual. It is called, more than once, a spirit from God, sent or permitted or both, never outside his sovereign hand even while it torments. Israel's God is never portrayed as one force competing with another he cannot control. Even this harmful spirit answers to him in the end.
The servants' remedy sounds strange to us and sensible to them: find someone skilled on the lyre. The search for a musician becomes one of the book's quietly ironic moments. The young man who recommends David calls him 18"skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the LORD is with him." Every phrase describes a king. Saul, without knowing it, invites the man God has already anointed to replace him into his own household, to ease the torment his own disobedience brought.
David comes, and something tender happens. 21"Saul loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer." Whatever the relationship becomes, marked by jealousy, thrown spears, and years of hunted flight, it begins in affection between a suffering man and a boy whose music works. 23"So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him." The affliction would return through the rest of Saul's reign, and this was never a permanent cure. Still, in each recurring hour of torment, relief comes through a shepherd's ordinary skill.
Consider how unremarkable David's gift was before this moment. He had not trained for years to be a royal musician. He was tending sheep, and somewhere in those long quiet hours he learned to play. God took a skill formed in obscurity and used it, at the hour it was needed, to bring peace into the household David would one day lead. Nothing in David's life so far had been wasted, not the sheep, not the solitude, not the lyre picked up to pass the time.
There is a deeper comfort past anything a lyre can give. Saul's relief came and went with each fresh assault. Believers in Christ are given a Spirit who does not depart. Paul says the Spirit is the down payment on something permanent, a seal that stays (Ephesians 1:13-14).
Ask what skill you learned in obscurity that God may be preparing to use.
Prayer
Father, thank you that you have never left us without comfort, even in seasons that feel like torment we cannot explain. Thank you for every ordinary skill, formed in obscurity, that you use for purposes we could not imagine. Thank you that your Spirit in Christ has sealed us for good and no longer visits and departs. Refresh us as David's music refreshed a suffering king. In Jesus' name, amen.