A
thousand years before Christ, if there was a “Most likely to
succeed” vote,
Saul would have won by a landslide!
1
Samuel
9:2 introduces him by saying, “[Saul was] an impressive young man
without equal
among the Israelites – a head taller than any of the others”. Some versions of the Bible
say that he was “Young
and good looking” or that “There was no one more handsome than
Saul”.
When
God
finally allowed Israel to have a king, the choice was obvious (1
Samuel
10). Saul’s courage made
him a good
military leader (1 Samuel 11) and his popularity united the
people. Saul was strong,
confident and
effective.
It
is
surprising, then, that when God lists the heroes of the faith in
Hebrews 11,
King Saul does not make the team.
There
are several reasons for this, but they all stem from one big issue
which can be
seen in 1 Samuel 13.
The
Philistines gathered their army and it was obvious that the
Israelites were in
big trouble. Some of the
warriors began
to lose heart and run away, but King Saul stood his ground. In fact, he wanted to attack,
but because he
had been told to wait until Samuel came and offered a sacrifice to
God, he
waited. A week later, his
patience ran
out. Saul decided that it
was up to him
to make something happen, so he offered the sacrifice himself. Moments later, Samuel
arrived and announced
that Saul’s impatience had cost him the kingship (verses 5-14).
Simply
stated, Saul’s problem was that he trusted in himself too much and
trusted in
God too little.
The
scary part of that story is that we act the same way. Too often, I have seen
churches and church leaders
push their own agendas and ideas.
Of
course, they pray, but it is only to get God to rubber-stamp their
own goals
and ambitions. As King
Saul proved, this
attitude is spiritually deadly!
Remember,
Jesus did not say that is was impossible to build a church group
based on our
own gifts, talents, and experience. What he did say is that those
efforts would
be worth nothing if they do not flow out of a relationship with
Him (Matthew
7:21-23; John 15:5).
Jesus
said
that he would build his church (Matthew 16:18).
Therefore, maybe we ought to start by asking what he wants
us to do.
“Trust
in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own
understanding; in all
your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight”
(Proverbs 3:5-6).
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