What Does it Mean That God Called David "A Man after My Own Heart"?

If you’ve ever used the phrase “he’s a man after my own heart,” did you know that this is what God said about a significant man in the Bible? Do you know what it means? Usually we would say someone is a person after your own heart because he/she has the same thoughts, feelings, and attitudes that you do. Someone after your own heart may have the same goals and dreams as well. But when God said a human was a “man after my own heart,” who was He talking about, and what made him so closely connected to God? 

Where Does the Phrase "A Man after My Own Heart" Come From?

The phrase “a man after my own heart” can be found in the Bible in the book of 1 Samuel. Samuel's mother Hannah had dedicated him to the church when he was an infant. He served in the temple until he was called by God to become a judge over the people of Israel. In this role, he was to keep the people following God’s commandments and to help keep the peace against foreign enemies. 

Samuel pleased God because he followed God's instructions. But he still was not the one God called “a man after my own heart.” That person would come after the people of Israel began complaining to God that they wanted a king. Why would they need a king when they had God as their ultimate king? They wanted to be like the other nations and perhaps they were also afraid of the other nations. So God anointed a man named Saul to be the first king of Israel.

Samuel then served God and the people as a prophet and priest and was given one of the most important roles in seeking “a man after my own heart.” In time, the Lord rejected Saul and sent Samuel to rebuke him and say, “But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people because you have not kept the Lord’s command” (I Samuel 13:14). To everyone’s surprise, God chose the youngest son of a man named Jesse of Bethlehem. So Samuel went to Bethlehem to find and anoint a teenager named David to be the next king of Israel. 

Why Was David Called a Man after God’s Own Heart?

Throughout David’s life, both in good times and in bad, David demonstrated characteristics that showed that he loved, respected, and feared God, making him a man after God’s own heart. After he was chosen by God, David’s first role was ironically in the kingdom of Saul; he began as a harp player to soothe Saul from an “evil spirit” that tormented him. God would take 15 years to train David to be king, taking him through several harrowing experiences before he would take Saul’s place, but David believed that what God had promised would come to fruition someday, so he remained faithful to do whatever God asked.

While David was serving Saul in this way, the enemy Philistine army gathered to attack the Israelites, and David’s older brothers followed King Saul into war. But the Philistines were too great for the Israelites, in large measure because they had a giant named Goliath who no one could kill. He kept yelling to the Israelites on the opposite side of the field of battle to send out their champion. If he could kill their champion, Goliath and the Philistines would become their servants and vice versa. Young David (likely between 16 and 19 years old at the time) took up the challenge, and in one of the most famous stories in the Bible, killed Goliath with one stone slung at his head. David proved he was a “man” after God’s own heart in the speech he gave before he attacked Goliath: “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head” (1 Samuel 17:45-46).

Upon this victory, King Saul gave David a high rank in the army. He was exceedingly successful, and subsequently loved by the people. This ignited a firestorm of jealousy within Saul and he later tried to kill David, sending David running into exile. He hid in caves, and in one instance, he spared Saul’s life when he could have easily overtaken him (showing mercy when many others in his position likely would not have). The Israelites would face the Philistines again, and in one battle, they killed three of Saul’s sons, and injured Saul, causing him to fall on his own sword to kill himself before the Philistines could.

David finally became the king in practice and not only in name. Once again, the Israelites faced the Philistines, and David defeated them, following God’s exact commands. David reclaimed the Ark of the Covenant that the Philistines had stolen, and was so gleeful in its return that he danced naked “before the Lord,” much to the dismay of his wife Michal who thought he was humiliating himself. He sang praises to God when God said, “Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth…I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom” (2 Samuel 7:9, 12).

David would later make mistakes and sin against God, leading to discipline that would be very painful for him. But each time, he would come back to God and repent, seeking the Lord’s forgiveness. And each time, he received it because, in God’s eyes, David was still “a man after God’s own heart.”

What Characteristics Made David a Man After God’s Heart?

In her article, “7 Reasons David is Called a Man After God’s Own Heart”, Melanie Campbell gives us a list of those traits that showed that David truly was a man of God. She mentions:

• Faith
• Trust
• Love
• Humility
• Integrity
• Forgiveness
• Worship

All of these can be seen throughout his life, but we can point to certain occasions that particularly demonstrated these character traits. David showed a great deal of faith and trust in God, both when he was called (since King Saul was already on the throne) and when he battled Goliath. He was a young, single-minded man who believed that God was his one true hope.

When King David defeated the Philistines and the Ark of the Covenant was returned, David showed tremendous love for God in his unbridled worship-filled celebration. He showed incredible humility when he sinned greatly against the Lord and asked God for forgiveness.

When it comes to integrity, he showed strength of moral character when he had an opportunity to kill King Saul and he didn’t. He knew that God had placed Saul on the throne and that it was God’s decision when he would no longer be king (despite the fact that Saul would have killed David any chance he got).

Another reason I believe that God considered David “a man after my heart” was that he wrote beautiful songs of worship and lament to his God (psalms). They were written to God, but they showed every reader down through history that God is worthy of our devotion, listens and answers our cries for help, and can handle our questions and doubts.

Did David’s Sins Contradict This Title?

Perhaps King David’s most memorable sin was his relationship with a woman named Bathsheba. When he was supposed to be out with his army fighting a battle, he stayed back, and on a stroll around his palace roof he caught sight of Bathsheba. She was taking a bath on a roof below, and David was instantly filled with lust for her. He sent men to go and get her and had intercourse with her, likely non-consensual. Soon after, she told him she was pregnant. Knowing that Bathsheba was married to one of his soldiers, David devised a plan to allow her husband to get killed in battle. Then he took Bathsheba to be his wife.

When confronted by the prophet Nathan, David realized the magnitude of his sin. Nathan told David that the child would die. David prayed and fasted for the child, but once he died, David came back to the Lord. In Psalm 51, David repents:

“Have mercy on me, O God,

    according to your unfailing love;

according to your great compassion

    blot out my transgressions. 

Wash away all my iniquity

    and cleanse me from my sin…”

God forgave David at this time and later in David’s life. It didn’t contradict the title of “a man after God’s own heart” because he loved God so much that even when he was blinded by sin, he always came back to God in true, heartfelt repentance. He trusted that God would forgive since it is one of God’s greatest character traits.

How Can Christians Strive to Be after God’s Own Heart?

I think David’s life is a powerful roadmap (even despite the sinful detours) for us as Christians today if we want to be people after God’s own heart. God is looking for believers who will love and trust Him, be great witnesses for Him, show mercy to others and repent when we sin.

To do so, we need to be intentional with our Bible study, prayer, worship, and repentance. We need to have such a hunger and thirst to know and love Him more that He looks at us and sees people who want to share His thoughts, feelings, and attitudes about this life. Then we can go out in the world and tell others about our great God who loves His people more than we can ask or imagine, despite our flaws and sin.

Having a heart for God doesn’t come naturally to us when we are blinded by our enemy or if we are dealing with a season of suffering. We live in a world where we are bombarded by evil and opportunities to sin every moment. We need to “keep short accounts” with God, meaning we grow to know Him and love Him more every day, and are therefore less likely to do things that would affect our relationship with Him. When we do sin, we immediately go to Him for forgiveness and ask Him to turn our hearts around. We can be encouraged that, even when we sin like David, because of Jesus, God still calls us "a man (or woman) after my own heart." Because if we have faith in Jesus, we can be sure that God has given us a new heart (Ezek. 36:26).

Without repentance, we can’t maintain a relationship of integrity with our heavenly Father. Though Jesus died once for all of our sins, we still need our Father to know that we agree with Him about our wrong thoughts and actions. Receiving His forgiveness releases us from fear, apathy, and from continuing in sin. This is the abundant life that Jesus promised for those who have a heart for God. 

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Yevheniia Bondarieva

Mary Oelerich-Meyer is a Chicago-area freelance writer and copy editor who prayed for years for a way to write about and for the Lord. She spent 20 years writing for area healthcare organizations, interviewing doctors and clinical professionals and writing more than 1,500 articles in addition to marketing collateral materials. Important work, but not what she felt called to do. She is grateful for any opportunity to share the Lord in her writing and editing, believing that life is too short to write about anything else. Previously she served as Marketing Communications Director for a large healthcare system. She holds a B.A. in International Business and Marketing from Cornell College (the original Cornell!) When not researching or writing, she loves to spend time with her writer daughter, granddaughter, rescue doggie and husband (not always in that order).  

Originally published February 07, 2025.