He said to his men, “The LORD forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the LORD's anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the LORD's anointed.”
David has Saul trapped in a cave, close enough to kill him, with every practical reason to do it — Saul has been hunting him for chapters. Instead David tells his own men: the LORD forbid that I raise my hand against him, he's the LORD's anointed.
This isn't about Saul deserving mercy. He doesn't, by any normal accounting. It's about David refusing to be the one who decides when someone else's authority runs out. He holds back not because it's safe, but because it isn't his call to make.
Most of us have had a moment where we had the power to hurt someone who'd hurt us, and it would have felt justified. This story doesn't ask you to pretend the wrong didn't happen. It just raises a harder question: what does it cost to hold back when you don't have to, and what might that restraint be protecting in you?
Is there someone you've been holding the power to hurt back, and what would it cost you to set that power down?
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.