Two soldiers meet three witches on the battlefield after their victory. Macbeth and Banquo greet the bearded ladies with amusement until the witches address Macbeth as if he were a king: “Hail!”
They claim to disclose time’s secret: Macbeth shall be first Lord of Cawdor and, one day, king. Banquo, his nobler friend, shall not be king, they are told, but his sons will. So their names shall both rise to royalty. Such seems absurd — until messengers arrive bringing news that the traitorous Lord of Cawdor has been executed and Macbeth named his successor. The first part of the prophecy is fulfilled.
So begins the intrigue.
Macbeth should be king, with Banquo’s sons to follow — but how? And how would this revelation influence Macbeth? Would the witches’ prophecy create what it foretold? How would such a proclamation sway you? Banquo warns Macbeth:
The instruments of darkness [the witches] tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray [us]
In deepest consequence. (Macbeth, 1.3.136–38)
Translation: The witches reveal true secrets in order to betray them into evil. Ambition begins to burn in Macbeth; unhappy are the scenes that follow. The lust of Macbeth (and his wife) murders the king to become him. Scorpions of madness crawl out of the wreckage and sting his mind. He sees blood on his hands and betrayal behind every smile.
Take note of the first domino to topple: the unsought words of witches. An intervening prophecy, a foretelling of seeming fortune, tempt and corrupt Macbeth’s heart. Knowledge of the future entices him to put a dagger in his king and seize his crown. Afterward, he murders Banquo and attempts the same on the worthy man’s son.
The Almighty Intervenes
One folly of this age is to assume these kinds of stories are untrue — to assume there are no messengers from beyond the world bringing news that alters destinies. Yet the Almighty reached down into the life of David, sending him just such a message through Samuel (though without the wicked intent) — a message that would affect the course of the world forever.
The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” (1 Samuel 16:1)
David, like Macbeth, received news of future enthronement. He too was tested with unnatural knowledge of his royal future. While Saul, also like Macbeth, is told the crown will not pass to his son (1 Samuel 15:28). And Saul, like Macbeth, descends into a paranoid rage to kill who’s next in line for the crown. But David, unlike Macbeth, would not take the kingdom by violence. He refused Satan’s shortcuts and trusted God’s meek and meandering path. Twice, he held the blade over the sleeping king — one thrust and the kingdom would be his — both times he spared Saul’s life. His promotion (or not) belonged to the Lord.
But imagine, dear reader, the wrestling you would experience if tested with such news that exaltation awaited you. Samuel anoints you, then leaves. You head back to the fields to tend your father’s sheep. A day passes — a week, a month, a year.
A decade of trials, heartache, questions, and persecution stands between David and his promotion. He writes choice psalms in this period. Back and forth he goes from the fields to the palace, from battlefield to battlefield, then from cave to cave in exile, all the while wondering, What of the anointing? What of the promise? Even after bringing down the ruthless giant and slaying his tens of thousands, David’s ambition for the throne is left to grapple with God’s inscrutable timing.
In the middle of this spiritual battle, David pens one of his most peaceful psalms. In the song, we see the slither of vainglory reduced to the image of a stilled and quiet babe.
Quiet Your Soul
Before we gaze upon David’s heart as he wrestles with God’s calling, remember that ambition is good. Paul was ambitious. Jesus was ambitious. David was ambitious. The churches languish, souls perish in lands of darkness, and sin is toyed with instead of slain when holy ambition falters. Our Lord places holy ambition at the front of his model prayer: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name!” David was not timid or bashful. He would grab a sling or the crown when the time came for either. He wasn’t one like Saul, hiding among the baggage.
But David’s was a patient ambition, a submissive ambition, an ambition not for his own glory but for his God’s. He was a controlled flame. And David reveals just how much effort that took for a young man. It didn’t come naturally to his heart, even a heart after God’s. Psalm 131 records the inner subduing.
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time forth and forevermore.
When greater things seem to lie ahead, the most radical thing you can do is wait on God. Your heart is sending you after high things, marvelous things, splendid things — but David teaches us that the boldest move you can make is to kneel in prayer, fast in hope, and submit in trust.
Humble
My eyes are not on thrones. In verse 1, David lays bare the current state of his heart and his eyes before God. His heart is not lifted up; his eyes are not raised too high. He is not haughty, proud, entitled. Men who think greatly of themselves constantly gaze beyond their station and meditate on how God would bless the world to make them king. But David’s chastened goal in life is not to seem to be somebody great but to be somebody under a great God.
Because David has resisted pride, lowered his eyes, and humbled his heart, he is not scheming about how to orchestrate his own ascension. I do not obsess with marvelous plans too high for me. Authoring his life story is not his calling. He is not to write the script or direct the film, but rather to simply act out his lines as best he knows how in the moment, staying ready for the expansion of his role as God chooses. Directing belonged to the Lord; submission belonged to David.
Doesn’t Spurgeon discern well the difference between David’s heart and the proud heart of Macbeth? “Many through wishing to be great have failed to be good: they were not content to adorn the lowly stations which the Lord appointed them, and so they have rushed at grandeur and power, and found destruction where they looked for honor.” David remained destined because David remained dependent.
Weaned
I have calmed and quieted my soul. In verse 2, we witness the calm — but a calm only after a storm. The image David gives is not one of a contented child who has no appetites or will of his own. David did not naturally sit with patience and wait on the Lord, as if he felt indifferent to his future or anointing. His alpha heart needed training.
The image David gives is of a child who has soothed a restless desire, quieted an inward clamor that seizes what his Lord has not yet given. Do you know that inward dialogue? The greedy whispers for marvelous things, the chatter of ascending hills too high for us? Some of us know the obsession after something — even something good — that threatens to rush ahead of Providence. We want things in our own way in our own timing — usually now. But do we know the triumphant rest, the hush after mutiny is silenced?
Back to the illustration. The child needs his mother’s milk. So far, the milk has come with little fuss. When he needs, he receives. But then comes the time for weaning. Inexplicable to the child, the mother denies or tempers his milk. He hungers. He fusses. He cries and gropes. Why do I not have what I need? What is happening? The child is being weaned.
David looks at this and sees his own soul. He desired to occupy himself with great things. He was tempted to lift his eyes, to direct his life. He began to dream of a career beyond his hillside. He wished to see more, be more — and his Lord had promised more. But holy ambition must not become unholy by putting a hand to the ark of God’s providence. He must wait and receive, not stab and take. He has an appetite, yet he achieves contentment on the other side of his violent thirst, knowing it is the Lord’s to satisfy. Now, like the child, he reclines with God, trusting in his perfect allowance and his perfect timing.
You have many dreams. You have godly ambition, I trust. You have been promised a bright future in Christ. But here is the question: Are you waiting on your Lord? On his good gifts? His promises? His call? O believer, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Our God works more than deliverance in his delay; he works on us. He weans us in the waiting, and this — above his giving what we ask for — is often his best reply. Often, he will give us good things when we ask him. But he may take or withhold to make us more spiritually minded, to wean us from this world, and to make us more like Christ. Keep to his meandering road, trust him through the delays, for his narrow path always ends eventually in glory.
Desiring God