I've said on more than one occasion "Instant gratification isn't quick enough". Sometimes regarding how I feel, sometimes as a response to a friend's comment. In fact, I used to pray "God, why can't you snap your fingers and 'poof' I'm the person you want me to be?"
But a while ago God showed me something interesting in the bible about this.
In the books of Samuel, we read about two kings. Saul, and David. Saul started with the full package. In fact we see he was quite remarkable in 1 Samuel 9:2 "Saul, an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites—a head taller than any of the others."
He was tall. Tall is good. In fact, I bet Darth Vader would have said "Impressive, most impressive". And Saul was humble, despite being so tall, or perhaps because of? I'm not sure. Regardless, we see his humility demonstrated in 1Samuel 9:21.
<tangent>Interesting psychology there... Someday, I think I will explore the psychology behind that.</tangent>
God leads Saul to Samuel, and Samuel effectively says to Saul in 1 Samuel 10:1-8 "The donkeys are fine (but not talking), people are worried about you, when you are hungry today, notice how God provides for both you and your servant, and then when you see people acting crazy you will join them, and at that moment God will instantly transform you. Then, you'll marinate in it for about a week and finally get some guidance." Samuel enjoys run on sentences in my interpretation.
Something really key here, in 1 Samuel 10:9 "As Saul turned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul’s heart". WOW. I need that. Every day. Every hour... Without the oil poured on my head though. Uh oh, tangent alert, I'll move on.
And Saul wasn't some young teenager. When I was a teenager, I decided to like water better than soda-pop and I've never looked back. Maybe that's not on the scale of Saul's transformation, but when I was young radical change was easier. Saul, he was 30 years old when this happened.
Being crazy with the prophets was something Saul didn't do. 1 Samuel 10:11 But God changed him there, and he was different.
We see that Saul's humility stuck with him through the transformation. When they looked for him, he was hiding with the baggage. I guess he couldn't find a rock to crawl under. Little good it did him, God told the people where to find him.
So Saul becomes king, he's what the people need, he's the one who God transformed into the person he needed to be. He saves towns like, Jabesh Gilead. This is good. This is GREAT! That's what I want! Well... maybe not. You see, the key here is it didn't stick.
<tangent>What's with all the comments about gifts in this passage? 1 Samuel 9:7 & 1 Samuel 10:27 I guess Saul's love language was gifts?</tangent>
Later in his life (not sure how much later, but he has a son who is in the army with him - Jonathan) he appears to lose his humility, the quality he had before God transformed him. The first thing Saul had learned about Samuel was that people wait for Samuel for their sacrifices. In 1 Samuel 9:12-13 the people were waiting and would not eat until Samuel blessed it. However, Saul took matters into his own hands and displeased God. He then added to this poor judgement by forbidding his soldiers to eat.
I think this is where Saul shows that he is overly swayed by what others thought of him. He bound the soldiers with this curse, but then doesn't follow through with the consequences. The soldiers didn't allow him to kill Jonathan, even though he had sworn to. He allowed the opinions of others to matter more than the opinion of God, as we see in 1 Samuel 15. Of course, Jonathan was right, it was a lame thing Saul had done. But it only gets worse from here, and he stops taking responsibility for the actions of his crew even though he was in charge. He allows his fear to control him because his pride now relies more on the opinions of people than the opinion of God and obeying him. Little things began to irritate him because they struck at his new god, others people's opinion.
Saul was someone who God snapped his fingers and made instantly into the person he needed to be in order to be a successful king as we see in 1 Samuel 10:6-7 Saul had humility, and God gave him wisdom, strength and courage, and inspired the nation to follow him. He had everything he needed to rule the Israelites. He got help from God to be a better person, and then soon after that, the good qualities he originally had began to slip away.
Of course, as I type this out, I wonder how much of a god I have made other people's opinion of me. I learn so well from these examples!
Next post, we will examine David.
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