When God chose Saul as his king, I'll bet Jonathan started thinking about how awesome it would be when he got to be king. That’s because when a king dies, his son usually takes over. (Remember in The Lion King when Simba sang, “Oh I just can’t wait to be king”? Kind of like that.)
Except it didn’t turn out that way. When Saul didn’t obey God, God rejected Saul and picked David to be the next king.
How would you take it if you were in line to be king and then someone else got it? You might expect Jonathan to have a huge temper tantrum. Instead, Jonathan watched David’s faith in action as he killed Goliath and gave God all the credit. “After that, Jonathan became David’s closest friend. He loved David as much as he loved himself” (1 Samuel 18:1).
Jonathan loved his God more than he wanted earthly glory. He saw that God was with David, and he wasn’t jealous. Instead, he loved David and spent the rest of his life protecting his best friend.
When you see your best friend getting better grades or winning a class election or getting picked for a lead role in the play, you can be like Jonathan and celebrate. Sometimes other people get more earthly glory. We trust that our God has good plans for us too.
Jonathan—who wasn’t jealous of his best friend—was God’s child, just like you are.
