David (In Answer To Johan Steyn) Poem by Gert Strydom

When David felled Goliath
he stood there as a young man
putting his trust
in the almighty God.

As a soldier totally incompetent
he could not even walk
in Saul’s armour,
did not even take along his own sword

but with a slingshot
he defied the giant champion of the Philistines
slinging a stone at a precise angle into the air
and with the giant’s sword chopped off his head.

When David cut a piece from the cloak
of king Saul, it wasn’t meant as a joke
but to show that the life of Saul
was in David’s hands.

That David was attracted to women,
nobody can deny, the ancestor of Christ
Bathsheba is a witness of it
and his love for Jonathan

was no carnal thing,
they were friends, who were comrades,
nearer than brothers to each other
and many men

who went with each other through battles
against deadly enemies
know this type of thing
when you have to leave your life
in someone else’s hands.

That the psalm poet David
was also a soldier
does not make him a mass murderer,
or do you want to fit

every man who once was a soldier
and now write poems
into this distorted picture?

So as if soldiers are not also Christians,
also serve God, also pray
cannot have a relationship
with Him?

Go and read what the Bible says
about people who add words,
or leave words out of it,
maybe it also pertains

to when you twist the Bible stories,
to fit to
your own impressions of life.


[Reference: Dawid (David) by Johan Steyn.]