Break Yo'self to Make Yo'self

“We Three Kings of Orient are...”

Well, two of them are, and one of them isn’t. And therein lays the heart of Gene Edwards’ novella A Tale of Three Kings, a narration on the first kings of Jerusalem. So without further adieu, I’d like to introduce you to Saul, David and Absalom. First introduced to me in the Biblical First Samuel and brought back to life, literarily, in A Tale of Three Kings, to show us what it means to be king, and more importantly, what it means to be broken.

But where does brokenness fit into kinghood you ask? Seems like an odd combination doesn’t it? Admittedly, I’d never even considered the thought that the two might in fact go hand in hand, but that’s because I wasn’t focusing on the right kingdom... but we’ll get to that. What we need to be focusing on for now is our characters, for it is in their actions that the connections will be revealed. Let them teach us the insignificance of title, rank and position. Let them teach us the significance of humility, fear and love.

Saul was a somebody. He was well respected. He was good looking. And he was anointed by God to be king of Jerusalem. And king he was. A very good king in fact. But his good fortunes prevented Saul from opening up to his own insecurity and fear; that there was going to be someone better than him.

David was a nobody. He was disrespected. He was a common man. And he was anointed by God to be king of Jerusalem. He just didn’t know it yet. The youngest of 8 brothers, his father Jesse sent him off to take care of one of his flocks of sheep, and so Dave would spend many a fortnight by himself. Loneliness and heartache led David to sing to the Lord many songs, and cry out to Him for companionship. And what David found was that his life was filled with love, even as a lone shepherd.

“Alone?” David thought. “No. I am not alone. I have a constant friend in my God.”

And this is the state in which Samuel found David. And it was in this state that a wise, old prophet, having seen many things, recognized that not but a lowly shepherd boy was the anointed of God. This boy had felt things, and would do things unimaginable. Samuel couldn’t explain it, but God had told him that David was Israel’s next king.

Here is where things start to get a little bit tricky. All I’ve done so far is explain what the story is about. Let me work my way back a little bit and explain. Saul appears to have no brokenness, while David appears to have quite a bit. And there’s Saul’s dilemma. You see, God is looking for brokenness, so Gene Edwards says, because He can take that brokenness, heal it, and fill it with His presence. So he had done to David. But Saul never gave Him that chance, and so Saul sought to remedy his jealousy by breaking David even more.

History has taught us that when someone gets hit, that person will always hit back. As Edwards’ likes to put it:

“When someone throws a spear at you, you wrench it out of the wall and you throw it back at them.”

That isn’t brokenness. That is rage, that is response and that is retribution. History was accurate in all but one telling. Because David didn’t throw spears back. Even when he had the opportunity to, he didn’t throw them back. David knew that if he were to throw a spear back, he’d be just like Saul. Even if David could have overthrown Saul with the simple action of throwing the second punch, he wouldn’t do it, because nothing was worse than being like Saul.

How can that be so? Saul was King of Jerusalem! KING! Ah, but friends, he would not open up his brokenness, he would not allow the presence of God to enter him and heal him and piece him back together. He tried to keep his image one of a strong man and a confident leader, while David lived in caves and became the laughing stock of Israel. But as he hid and cried and feared, so too did he learn to love God even more, and so, as years passed by, Saul’s insecurities led to his downfall, without David striking against him even once. Saul went so crazy that he did multiple things he swore on oath to God as king he would never do, and eventually killed himself. And so David, the ‘broken’ one, walked right into Jerusalem and took his place as God’s anointed king.

Do you see what it was that David understood, and what is was that Saul could not grasp in his mind? Their kingdom of Israel was insignificant in comparison to the Kingdom of God. David knew this, and therefore understood that all he truly needed was his relationship with the King of that Heaven. Saul didn’t understand that, and gave God the backseat as he pushed harder and harder to gain control of a land he was already in control of. This certainly begs the question then: “Who was really the broken one?” David may have been broken, but Saul, in his desperate attempt to avoid his brokenness, ended up breaking permanently.

David was able to stick to the same principles he’d had as a shepherd and as a refugee when he became king, and while he certainly made many mistakes, some more horrible than others, he never lost sight of the fact that he was a broken man in the hands of a Healing Father, and it was because of this openheartedness that his reign over Jerusalem was so plentiful and protected. David conquered many foes, but never sought vengeance. Even when a second Saul entered his life, in the form of his own son, Absalom.

Absalom was a somebody. He was well respected. He was prince of Jerusalem. But he was not anointed by God to be king of Jerusalem. But Absalom wanted what David had. He failed to realize that David didn`t even want what David had. Edwards put it best in the form of an old man who served with David:

“As far as David’s authority: Men who don’t have it talk about it all the time. Submit, submit! That’s all you hear. David had authority, but I don’t think that fact ever occurred to him. We were six hundred no-goods with a leader who cried a lot! That’s all we were!”

You see, it was David’s brokenness that had gained him his authority. His subservience to the Lord guided him through grace into his position of authority. Absalom, like Saul, failed to realize this. And so he hid away his own brokenness, the brokenness of a son in the shadows of a father, and plotted and struck against David. What would you have done if you were David? With not but a single word David could have destroyed the work of Absalom, just as he could have obliterated Saul with the simple action of returning a thrown spear. But that would have turned him into Absalom. That would have turned him into Saul.

No. David did once again what nobody could understand, that I think, secretly, even he didn’t fully understand. He did nothing. He took hold of his brokenness, and gave it back to God. And sure enough, Absalom failed. He did battle with his father’s troops, unbeknownst to his father, and was killed, to the great dismay of David. Absalom’s shame mirrors Saul’s insanity, and in that we see the resonance of their brokenness.

So what does it mean to be broken? Does it mean to be lonely, despised, disrespected? Maybe. People certainly thought so of David. But I like to think that it was truly Saul and Absalom who were the broken ones. For you see, David took his hurts and his misfortunes and he gave them to God and God rewarded him for them. He guided him through the darkness and brought him into glory. Saul and Absalom refused to admit their brokenness, refused to admit that they might be weak, that they didn’t have authority, and so instead of receiving healing from God, they instead broke even more. One went insane. One hung from a tree by his hair.

So I invite you now to be like David. It certainly is the harder path to follow, but in the end, it is worth it. Embrace your brokenness. When you get hurt, let it hurt. When someone insults you, love them. When someone hits you, don’t throw a spear back at them. And who knows? Maybe one day you’ll become king too. One thing is for sure: If we hand our brokenness to God and let Him have it, we will certainly all become kings in the true Kingdom, that is, the Kingdom of Heaven.


“And today, though I am the anointed king, I am weak”
2 Samuel 3: 39a