This week we’ve read about Samuel listening to God, and going to a little village to anoint a young man whose own father didn’t seem to value him much. Fast forward about 1,000 years. Jesus, God in human flesh, was going to Jerusalem, where a cross awaited him. Blind men who yearned for his healing touch, people who loved and followed him, even children called him “son of David,” a title of honor that meant he was the promised Messiah. (Even Jesus’
enemies immediately understood the import of the title.) Because Samuel listened to God, David’s name had become a key link in the chain of God’s eternal saving action.

• In 2 Samuel 7:14 God, through the prophet Nathan, promised of David’s descendants that “I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me.” In Psalm 2:7 God said of Israel’s king, “You are my son, today I have become your father.” Like David himself, none of his human descendants could fully live out those promises. That was why Israel came to call the Messiah the true “son of David,” who would make real all that God had promised. In Jesus, God became part of our human history, redeemed it and pointed it toward its eternal destiny. What does it mean, each day, for you to choose the “Son of David” as the king of your life?