Thursday, April 28 ~ Miriam

Today's reading from the Chronological OT/NT Reading Plan is 1 Samuel 15-16; Luke 20:1-26.

Oh, Saul.  Saul, Saul, Saul.  You go from being a humble man, unsure of his own abilities or worthiness, but chosen and anointed, changed, and given the Spirit, to someone who disobeys God, sets up a monument in your own honour, is divested of the Spirit, and tormented by an evil spirit instead.  What a terrible shame.


1 Samuel 15:22 - But Samuel replied:  "Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord?  To obey is better than sacrifice..."  


Obedience is what is required of us.  Even when we think God must be mistaken, or we know better.  Even when it seems wasteful, as this seemed to the Israelites.  Why kill perfectly good, healthy livestock?  Sure, kill the sickly, weak, or old ones, but what a wasted of resources to destroy good animals!  Makes sense, right?  Don't our "waste not, want not" and "reduce, reuse, recycle" little hearts just love the idea of keeping those good resources?  Disobedience was the downfall of the king of Israel - the man who was valiant and victorious against the enemies of Israel, who stood head and shoulders above everyone else.  They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions - sin is sin, no matter how good we think our reasons are.  Obedience is a really difficult thing for many of us.  It means submitting our will to that of someone else.  But in this case, seeing as how it's the Creator of the universe, who sees and knows more than we could hope to fathom, you'd think we'd figure out that He knows best.  You'd think.  But I find myself so often just truckin' along doing what I think I need to do without consulting the Almighty on what HIS plan might be.

One thing that I wondered about was verse that says God was grieved that He'd made Saul king.  He knew what would happen, so if He knew He'd be grieved, why didn't He make someone else king?

The following is from a site called angelfire.com -


The Lord’s Repentance.

Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel saying,
"I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not carried out My commands." And Samuel was distressed and cried out to the Lord all night. (1 Samuel 15:10-11).When we come to verse 29, we shall read that God "is not a man that He should change His mind." And yet, we read here that God regretted His actions.

• God’s actions are not random. They are part of an eternal and unchanging plan.

• That plan is revealed to men in a gradual and unfolding manner.

• The gradual unfolding of God’s plan are like the unfolding of a map which is twisted and turned as it is opened before our eyes. This does not reflect a change in the map, but in how we see its design. The changes that are revealed in time do not catch God by surprise. They are all a part of His plan.

• God experiences real emotions. He is the Creator of emotions. As such, I believe that our emotions are a pale reflection of His own.

God knew that Saul's actions would grieve Him, but this was the way God chose to bring His plan to fulfillment.  That doesn't mean that He doesn't still feel the grief, just because He knew it was coming.  Similarly, when something happens in our lives that causes us grief and pain, we know that it is part of His plan, that it will ultimately work to reveal His glory (though we may not see how), and He grieves with us.  He's not some remote being pointing fingers at people randomly to see them squirm.  When part of His plan involves painful experiences for us, He feels that pain as well.  We are never alone in our grief, depression, despair, or pain, no matter how isolated and incapable we feel of getting through the situation.

On a brighter note, we also have the anointing of David in today's passage.  In spite of David's faults, he is still one of my favourite people in the Bible.  He's like a celebrity... good-looking, strong, a good musician, a brave warrior, becomes king, sleeps with someone else's wife... well, not all the qualities that make one a celebrity are necessarily good qualities.  But here we have the young guy, full of life, full of promise, an outdoorsman, good-looking, plays the harp... but there was more to him than that.  His brothers were good-looking and tall in stature, but none of them were chosen.  God sees the heart.  He knew something about David that wasn't visible to the human eye.  He knew David's heart.  He knew David would be a loyal friend, a good and humble servant to the king (until he became king himself), a brave and valiant killer of a giant, a well-known poet and writer of music, and would obey Him and be a good leader of His chosen people (for the most part).  God sees the heart.  It doesn't matter how nice we look on the outside, or how we dress up our actions to look good to those around us.  If we're not sincere, if we're putting on a show, if we are like the Pharisees to whom outward appearances were of utmost importance, God knows.

Well, that's all I've got for today.  Have a fabulous Thursday, everybody.

 Tomorrow's passage:  1 Samuel 17-18; Luke 20:27-47.