Who has the king of Israel come out after? Who is it that you are pursuing? A dead dog? A single flea?… I Samuel 24:14 …for the king of Israel has gone out to look for a flea the way one looks for a partridge in the hill country… I Samuel 26:20

Where are kings made? Are they made in gardens or do they rather display their conquered glory there? What does it take for a king to be made? The narratives in the book of 1 Samuel recording the dynamic between King Saul and the flea who becomes King David are something every pastor needs to live through in their own developement for ministry. Peter Leithart has noted that one-third of the occurances in all of 1 Samuel of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ appear in chapters 24-26; this has led him to suggest that, “One of David’s chief qualifications for kingship was the fact that he resisted these temptations. Any leader of the church today must have his senses trained to resist similar temptations – power-grabs, taking advantage of opportunities to embarrass one’s opponents, mounting symbolic assaults.” (pg.123, A Son To Me) 

If such an opportunity as this provided itself to us, to be fleas, would we take it or run from it? We tend to think that ministry preparation means reading books, taking tests, and doing internships; but what about this, what about being the ‘flea’? Justice was one of the chief interests of both the Law and Wisdom, how does a flea become a just king?

I wonder if King David who was once a flea, did not latter lead a kingdom of flea’s and the only way to prepare for such a service was to be a flea himself for as long as the Lord desired it… 

Lord give us Kings who were once fleas, who have not forgotten the ‘flea-ness’ of that time as they lead us with patience and righteousness. Lord for those of us who desire to serve, let us not be power-grabers, seeking to embarrass our opponents, but instead let us trust in your power to raise up all things in due time. Lord let us not live behind symbolic assaults against the ‘other’, but rather let all our words be full of grace and seasoned with salt. So that your justice may set men and women free to be Kings and Queens…

Lord remind us of the great King of calvary who sought not to have his name be made right or holy or pure, but rather obeyed in the agony and silence of the cross, remind us of the resolution of this Great flea’s love and the exaltation of his name, be glorified in our midst Father…