Our culture often focuses on states, and mid-states, the result is that we try to recreate those states. Our scientific method is defined by this state obsession - without those definable and repeatedly creatable states, the scientific method would not exist. Nor would a great number of tools and concepts we currently take for granted. Less understood (and thus less investigated) are the transitions. Less effective is the ability to consistently and effectively recreate transitions.
As an example, consider that it took the math world centuries before they had a transition between negative and positive numbers. Now, that transition is so ingrained into us that you would be hard pressed to find anyone that did not become nearly innumerate with the lack of that transition (zero).
Transitions are terrible. They offer the tools for redemption, healing, hope, life, love, and engagement. God does more wonders in transitions than at any other time in a person's life. Most of the people in scripture who were miraculously engaged were put into that position in the midst of transition. The Children of Israel were in transition when the plagues hit. They were also in transition, for decades, as they walked to the promised land. They were in transition when Saul was chosen, by God, to be their king. It was during a transition, in the eighteenth chapter of first Samuel, that Jonathan's soul becomes knit with David's soul.
Looking at this is interesting. Two chapters prior, Saul had first been made aware of David when Saul's countenance could only be appeased through music - Saul did not connect that his peace as truly coming from God, nor that David's presence near him was a foreshadowing of Saul's loss of the kingdom. Then, when Goliath was killed, we have Saul looking into David's background. It is interesting to note that Saul does not concern himself with the David's background until Goliath was killed.
We effectively have what looks like an immediate "out-of-nowhere" connection between Jonathan and David. Likely, during the transition between Saul's background check and Jonathan's spiritual knitting, Jonathan learned a great deal about David. He was already a national hero and thus a public figure. In the same sense, Jonathan must have felt a kinship with him - earlier (possibly years earlier) he had been in a similar scenario. Saul was involved in some sort of skirmish where the nation comprised of the children of Israel was under attack as a nation.
Saul's ungodly choices had put the nation at risk and only Jonathan's intentional and direct seeking of God's will and acting separate from Saul's direction (as well as claiming the victory for God) provided an opportunity for the children of Israel to survive yet another seemingly-impossible scenario and for God's glory to be evident. David experienced similar circumstances when Saul, again, was king and not making godly choices. Saul was (again) cowering in response to Philistines and an underdog rose, hearkened to God, and was a champion of the faith, representing God's will. It is this collection of similarities, as well as whatever changes God wrought, that suggest why Jonathan felt knit to David.
To close, note that Jonathan was a willing servant of God when he fought the Philistines with nothing but the leading of God. Later on, his role was not one of leader, but servant, and he clearly engaged in that whole-heartedly - it is likely what was built on the building blocks of this being knit with David's soul.
Call to action
I believe every one of us is called to be a Jonathan and/or a David.
My challenge to you today is simple: Pray for faith.
- Pray for the faith to represent your fellow believers.
- Pray for the faith to heal the sick, speak in tongues, hearken to God, walk in spirit and in truth, worship and pray without ceasing, and have peace when all around you the world is screaming to act.
- Pray for the faith to stand alone when others, even believers, are moving en masse, and you feel God is leading you to wait.
- Pray for the faith to act alone when others, especially believers, indicate they are not or will not.
- Pray for the faith to be faithful.
Above all - pray for faith.
