1 SAMUEL 8–31
The children of Abraham had developed quite a list of enemies. After all, they had shown up unannounced and proclaimed themselves the rightful heirs to a land that was already occupied. Then they had proceeded to kill everyone who didn’t leave peacefully and immediately.
That’ll put you on a lot of people’s naughty list.
Now, some of these enemies were tiddly little people who wouldn’t scare anybody. But some of them were fearsome and had names like “Philistines” and “Ammonites” and “Amalekites.” And all of them had something the Israelites did not have, a king. Usually that king was an impressive-looking person, the kind of presence that could reassure the people and intimidate the enemies.
When someone asked the Israelites to show them their leader, all they could do was point to a box called the Ark of the Covenant, which sat inside a portable tent called the Tabernacle. That’s where YHWH sat but, well, YHWH was invisible. And some of their enemies started to wonder if “invisible” might actually mean “imaginary.”
So the Israelites wanted a king, a real, flesh-and-blood king. Preferably someone who would strike terror in the hearts of their enemies.
And that’s when they found a 30-year-old golden boy named Saul.
He was tall, stood head and shoulders above everyone else, and had that commanding presence that you want in a king. He came from a wealthy family, and he was everything you think of when you think of a leader. Tall. (Did I already mention tall?) Handsome. Quick-witted. He was quickly approved by God, anointed by the prophet Samuel and affirmed by the people.
But none of that was enough to ensure his success as the first king of Israel. Like so many other young men of privilege, Saul had trouble with self-control and responsibility.
Still, whatever doubts anyone may have had were quickly erased after his first military campaign. A foreign king laid siege to one of the Israelite towns, vowing to gouge out the eyes of the townsfolk. Saul raised an army of more than 300,000 men and led them in a pre-dawn attack, utterly destroying the enemy.
Maybe he was going to be alright after all.
But Saul had an internal anxiety that showed up at the oddest of times in the oddest of ways and drove him to do the oddest of things. He hid among the suitcases when it was time to come out and greet the people for the first time. He flew off in a rage at the slightest provocation. He was impatient and impulsive, and when he was confronted, there was always an excuse.
Before long, his mind became completely poisoned by jealousy and fear. Two of his children were estranged from him. His inability to calm the anxiety that boiled within him drove him to attempt the impossible, murder a man God Himself had promised to protect.
Saul’s life and reign as king gradually went from bad to worse. The man who had looked so full of promise, so kingly, became a sullen shell of a person who drove those closest to him further and further away. In the end, he lost his kingdom, his integrity, his family and his very life.
The first king of Israel had many enemies, but none was greater than himself.
Father God, I know that I am engaged in a spiritual warfare on the three battlefronts of the flesh, the world and the devil. These forces are opposed to Your rule and authority, and the most chilling of them is the flesh, because it is internal. I affirm that the good I want I do not do, and instead practice the very evil I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but the sin that dwells in me. There rages a war between my deepest self in Christ and the sinful remnant of what I was in Adam. But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! You have given me the power of Your Holy Spirit so that I can put to death the deeds of the flesh. Let me never trust in my own devices and desires, but only in Your power.
In Jesus’s name, Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment