David   A man after Gods own heart p3.

The second quality which David possessed that caught the attention of God was that right through out his lifetime he never failed to stay small in his own eyes.
It is easy when a person is in fact in very humble circumstances or has no prominence or any great authority to stay humble in their own estimation.
However it is when they are exalted to places of great authority and responsibility that the real test comes.
After Nathan the prophet went to David and delivered to him the powerful promises in 2 Samuel 7 it is interesting to note Davids immediate response.
David had been told that his throne and kingdom would endure forever a promise that spoke of fulfilment in the coming messiah;he was promised unending mercy for himself and for his family deliverance from all his enemies and a great name.
And yet his response was to go into the house of God and pray,
"Who am I O Lord?And what is my house that you have brought me this far?
And yet this was a very small thing in your sight,O Lord God;and you have also spoken of your servants house for a great while to come .Is this the manner of man,O Lord God?
Now what more can David say to you ?
For you Lord God know your servant.
For your words sake,and according to your own heart,you have done all these great things,to make your servant know them.
Therefore you are great,O Lord God. 2 Sam 7   18-22.
David was very little enamoured with himself he saw all of Gods dealing with him as fulfilling Gods word and Gods heart toward him, to demonstrate Gods greatness not his own.
Contrast that response with that of king Saul in 1 Sam 15 when Saul failed to carry out the Lords instructions to destroy everything of the Amalekites and Samuel subsequently confronted him,
"When you were little in your own eyes,were you not head of the tribes of Israel?
And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel?
The implication in this is all to clear;There was a time when Saul like David had been taken from a place of obscurity and raised up as king over Gods flock.
However unlike David who never lost that heart of genuine humility before the Lord Saul had long forsaken seeing himself as little in his own eyes and let his power go to his head.
The history of the church is littered with examples of men who fell because they once started with a real sense of their dependency upon God and become too big in their own eyes.
Jesus said in Luke 17 v 10   that we after we have done everything which we were commanded to do should say,
"I am an unprofitable servant, I am simply doing my duty."
We need to continually say this because we need to continually believe this.
Likewise Paul in his letter to the Philippians  says that we should
" consider others better than ourselves "

Romans 12 v 3   For I say through the grace given to me to everyone which is among you,
not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think,but to think soberly as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.
God is not fooled by our pretences it is not so much what we say but that which we truly believe and think in our innermost heart.
I consider that pride is perhaps the greatest and most deceitful of all sins simply because it is so hard to detect in ourselves.
That is why it is a wise person who looks to God to uproot it and not to their own devices for self deliverance.
A wise prayer to pray often is "Search my heart and test my anxious thoughts O God
See if their is any offensive way in me and lead me in paths of everlasting truth."
Keep me back and restrain me O God from sins of presumption (which is pride )
Considering the level of entrustment that God granted to King David it makes his humility before the Lord all the more great.
We would be wise to imitate it.
As we have looked at the first two qualities in David that constituted his having a heart after God it is fitting to be reminded of what the prophet Micah says to us
"With what shall I come before the Lord,
And bow myself before the High God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams
or ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has shown you,O man what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?  Micah 6  v6---8