From Shame to Glory
Mephibosheth, a cripple hiding in Lo-Debar. From the time he was 5 years old he had suffered from a fall. His nurse had dropped him while fleeing in fear. She had heard of the death of King Saul. The child’s grandfather, along with Jonathan, his father, were both slain in the same day. Mephibosheth was supposed to be a prince. He was to grow up at court and enjoy the spacious liberty of being of the royal family. Only the best should have been his. The best schooling. The best clothes. But now he is a cripple hiding in fear. Living in the desert, Lo-Debar, a barren place. The name means a place without a word. A lonely place. A quiet place where nothing ever happens.
Years earlier his father, Jonathan, had made a covenant with David that would one day affect his life. Jonathan made David swear that he would remember his seed. David is now king over all of Israel. He is now very prosperous and the Lord is causing him to remember Jonathan. David said, “Is there any left of the house of Saul that I may remember my promise to Jonathan to take care of his seed?” Someone spoke up and said, “there is a son of Jonathan, called Mephibosheth, who is living at Lo-Debar.”
He is a cripple, his name means from the mouth of shame. Yet, God is causing David to remember the glory of God’s promise. The covenant. The mouth of shame was his name not because of the fall, nor because his father and grandfather were disliked. Not even because he lived a crippled, or even because he live in Lo-Debar; which meant he lived without a word from God. The mouth of shame is the declaring of all those things that are not as the things that they should be. God said, “calling those things that are not as though they were.” Like, let the weak say they are strong, let the poor say they are rich and let the defeated say they have victory. It is walking by faith and not by sight.
In Philemon 1:6 He said, “the communication of they faith may become effectual by the acknowledging in of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.” In other words, when we speak faith in the face of doubt and unbelief there is a power that is released that causes us to always have victory. Instead of always seeing the glass half empty we need to see it half full.
Beloved, it is the way we meet the opportunities that are given to us that determines the outcome of our disposition. The inherent qualities of mind and character. The way we arrange and place things makes all the difference. A king one time was given the opportunity for victory by the way he would smite some arrows upon the ground. He took them half half-heartedly and smote them upon the ground three times. The prophet was very angry. He said, “you should have took them and smote them on the ground until nothing was left, but you hit them on the ground only three times. These arrows were your deliverance, so now you will only have part deliverance.”
Throughout the years Mephibosheth let his current disposition be, I am a cripple, I am lost, I don’t have a word to go on. He was like the ten spies that came back with an evil report instead of the two that came back speaking the same thing God said. The Lord said, “My servant Caleb had another spirit with him.” The spirit of the spoken word. He shall enter in and have all that I have spoken. The others had to die it the wilderness because of their slanderous report. If Mephibosheth had not had a father that was a man of vision he would not himself have ever entered into the promise. Only because Jonathan and David had made a covenant years ago. The Lord was obligated to legally and morally keep the promises made by David and Mephibosheth’s father. This is why he went from the shame of his broken confession to the glory of God’s promise!
When we are unfaithful God is always faithful. The king had a place set at his table for him to eat. The Lord said, “I have set a table in the presence of thine enemies, come and dine, come and dine.” Beloved, when we learn to quite speaking doubt and unbelief and start thanking God for all things, the sooner we will come to realize that we have a place that’s beyond the emptiness of Lo-debar and to the glory of God’s table!
