1 Samuel 23:12-13 Then David said, “Will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul?” And the Lord said, “They will surrender you.” Then David and his men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed from Keilah, and they went wherever they could go. When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he gave up the expedition.
The pain is deep and grows deeper as the days go by. It is not physical, but your heart feels like bursting apart. Tears cannot suite it, comforts from others is a waste of time. Have you ever recoiled in yourself and feel like, let the earth swallow me so that tomorrow will be abated. If you have not been there, then you have not been betrayed by the one you trust.
If it happens on the marital bed, your spouses’ touch feels like an irritating crawling ant. If it is in the office, you sit at your corner and sneer at the peeping demons who call themselves your colleagues. The feeling from the boardroom to the bedroom is same. No one is at home with knowing that those in whom you put confidence on can draw a knife and strike you at the back.
David felt that way in this story. He had put his life on the line for a town under siege called Keilah. Saul heard that David had stuck out his neck for a landlocked city, and decided to go after him. God told David of the hatching treachery and he had to be on the run.
The pain of betrayal is worse when it comes from those you lay your life down for. I wonder how Jesus would have felt as a man. He had been good to judas and given him all that he wanted for three and half years of his life. He was the treasurer of the ministry who helped himself with the collective purse. Jesus knew this and yet loved him. Those that have treachery in their blood can behave like the proverbial hunter with an elephant on the head and yet trapping a grasshopper with their legs. Sometimes, greed and jealousy is at the root of it. At other times fear and and competitive spirit is the culprit.
We make bold to say that trust is one of the scarce commodity in the world today. Pre-nuptials and unnecessary agreements litter the landscape .Today siblings draw agreement to enter business. Why not if they have seen the pre nuptials of their parents. One of the bases for dissolving marriage in law is absence of trust. It is described as bottom being knocked out of the bucket. Indeed, the society is heading to anarchy with the death of trust and the treachery holds the dagger.
Pastor Onyema Duruigbo, is General Overseer of The GOSPEL HOUSE, Lagos, Nigeria.