2 Samuel 16:13
David and his men continued on the road, while Shimei kept up with them on the hillside, all the while cursing and throwing stones and dirt as he went.
The Old Testament readings at daily mass for the last few weeks have followed the story of David's rise to kinghood over Israel. Let me just say it was not a very pretty assent. David is God's chosen one but that doesn't change the fact that he was pretty flawed. Yet God was able to use him anyway. Today we get a good example of why. David is basically running for his life and his own son is out to get him. Then he comes upon this guy Shimei who is a relative of Saul. David's previous actions were pretty much the demise of Saul along with most of Saul's family. In an effort to keep it PG rated lets just say there was a lot of war and death, and most of the blame was on David. So here is this guy throwing stones, dirt and curses at King David, while his entire army standing right beside him. What does David do? He tells them to let the guy alone. David realised he deserves to be cursed and have dirt and stones thrown at him so he refused to do anything to harm Shimei. I don't know about you but I'm pretty sure I am just as flawed as David. I think we can all take a lesson from David here. Next time someone is on the attack, step back, take a breath and realize that maybe we did something to deserve those stones. Let's take our beating and learn from it.
