So Michal let David down through a window, and he fled and escaped.
1 Samuel 19:12 (NIV)

Well over a decade ago my dad was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma. He was told at the time that the averages suggested he had about three and a half years to live.

He’s still living.

He successfully took care of my mom in her journey with Alzheimers for almost a decade until she slipped into eternity back in 2023. He survived a bout with a nasty infectious superbug that required an antibiotic so strong the doctors warned him that the cure itself could kill him. At 89, he’s still in independent living. In fact, he’s busy working on large stained glass piece that he was commissioned to design and create for the new oncology wing of our local hospital.

I remember telling my dad back when he was initially struggling with his doctor’s three-and-a-half years prognosis that it was God who numbers our days — not his doctor.

Dad came to mind today as I read today’s chapter. Mad King Saul is on a tear. He wants David dead like Robert De Niro’s Al Capone wanted Eliot Ness dead in The Untouchables. He’s increasingly obsessed with putting his young rival six-feet-under.

What’s fascinating about today’s chapter is that everyone, including Saul’s own family members, work to protect David.

Jonathan.
Michal.
Samuel.
Unnamed prophets.
Even the Spirit’s intervention upon Saul himself.

David is protected from every direction.

When I read today’s chapter, it is tempting to focus on David’s escapes. But the deeper reality is that David is not surviving because he is clever. He is surviving because God is quietly arranging people, circumstances, conversations, delays, and interventions that David cannot even see.

I’ll be honest. I typically would prefer obvious miracles in life. Yet God’s most common form of protection is hidden providence.

A friend who speaks up.
A spouse who warns us.
A closed door.
A delayed appointment.
A conversation we didn’t expect.
A circumstance that mysteriously changes course.

Looking back, I suddenly realize that what seemed random was actually God standing guard over a promise.

David’s life in this chapter reminds me that God’s care is often invisible while we are living it. Only later do we see the fingerprints. And perhaps that’s the invitation of today’s chapter…to trust that the God who holds our future and numbers our days is already at work in places we cannot see, through people we may not even notice, protecting purposes we don’t yet fully understand.

It’s only when we look back over a decade of days that medical science said we’d never live that the truth comes into focus.

The spear gets our attention.

But the hidden hand of God is the real story.

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