Lenten Devotions - Day 23
“Samuel said: ‘If Yahweh has turned away from you and is now your enemy, don’t ask me what to do. I’ve already told you: Yahweh has sworn to take the kingdom from you and give it to David. And that’s just what he’s doing!’” 1 Samuel 28:16-17
We want to put out a fleece like Gideon until we get the answers we seek. We aren’t so willing to trust what we know is God's will. It has always been this way. It is the same for the gambler and lotto player. If the roll of the dice does not work the first time, we try again until we get the answers we seek. The best two out of three becomes the best out of eleven. We are the child repeating a request of his parents, again and again, hoping they will eventually change their minds, giving in to our will.
We struggle with God's will. On one level, we want to know God's will. On another, we know that God’s desires conflict with our own. We wrestle to understand God's will mostly in terms of the “big ticket items”—a job, position, promotion, house, choice of school, or mate. We think God is mostly concerned with issues we call major. They are not issues about which we find God concerned in the Bible. Sure, there is the exception, like finding a wife for Isaac, yet on the whole, careers, spouses, and housing are not central among God's interests in our lives. God is much more interested in character, trusting God, loving others, and caring for the justice concerns of those in need.
These were the real issues facing Saul. Saul wanted to win battles and protect position, power, and status. He was concerned with personal comfort and security. Yahweh was concerned about Saul serving the people and God. Saul took a mission to discredit David or end David's life. He saw in David a threat to his position and prestige. The true threat was ego and placing his interests ahead of God’s. He worried about looking good before the people, wielding power, and putting himself first. God wanted to be first in his life. The rest of the issues were insignificant to God's big picture.
If Saul had given God the central position in his life, Saul would have had no need to worry for the other issues he faced. Those concerns would have paled in comparison with pleasing God. Instead, he found himself in the quarters of a medium in Endor, calling up the spirit of Samuel to determine how Yahweh might give him military victory. Samuel's response is to be expected. Yahweh had never sanctioned the use of mediums. Saul had even made a show of putting all the mediums to death. At his first whim to locate one, however, his servants knew exactly where to turn. Contrary to God's clear will, Saul ostensible sought to determine God's will. He already knew what he needed to know. He had known all along. What he had not done was to submit to living as God had already made clear.
We are not too different in our search for God's will. The problem is that we are not so concerned with God's will, so much as God's sanction of our decisions, ambitions, dreams, and desires. We force God's will into a little box of our pet concerns. We want to know God's will within a range of options we have preselected and limited. Determining to discover and follow what God really wants just seems too open-ended and makes us too uneasy. Are we ready to allow God free reign of our lives?
What is it that God is wanting of you that you have been shoving aside? Place your life focus on fulfilling God's will as already revealed in Christ Jesus. The lesser issues will fall into place.
“Lord, grant me the strength to seek your will, beginning by following the example of Christ Jesus.”
—©Copyright 2009 Christopher B. Harbin http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/
We want to put out a fleece like Gideon until we get the answers we seek. We aren’t so willing to trust what we know is God's will. It has always been this way. It is the same for the gambler and lotto player. If the roll of the dice does not work the first time, we try again until we get the answers we seek. The best two out of three becomes the best out of eleven. We are the child repeating a request of his parents, again and again, hoping they will eventually change their minds, giving in to our will.
We struggle with God's will. On one level, we want to know God's will. On another, we know that God’s desires conflict with our own. We wrestle to understand God's will mostly in terms of the “big ticket items”—a job, position, promotion, house, choice of school, or mate. We think God is mostly concerned with issues we call major. They are not issues about which we find God concerned in the Bible. Sure, there is the exception, like finding a wife for Isaac, yet on the whole, careers, spouses, and housing are not central among God's interests in our lives. God is much more interested in character, trusting God, loving others, and caring for the justice concerns of those in need.
These were the real issues facing Saul. Saul wanted to win battles and protect position, power, and status. He was concerned with personal comfort and security. Yahweh was concerned about Saul serving the people and God. Saul took a mission to discredit David or end David's life. He saw in David a threat to his position and prestige. The true threat was ego and placing his interests ahead of God’s. He worried about looking good before the people, wielding power, and putting himself first. God wanted to be first in his life. The rest of the issues were insignificant to God's big picture.
If Saul had given God the central position in his life, Saul would have had no need to worry for the other issues he faced. Those concerns would have paled in comparison with pleasing God. Instead, he found himself in the quarters of a medium in Endor, calling up the spirit of Samuel to determine how Yahweh might give him military victory. Samuel's response is to be expected. Yahweh had never sanctioned the use of mediums. Saul had even made a show of putting all the mediums to death. At his first whim to locate one, however, his servants knew exactly where to turn. Contrary to God's clear will, Saul ostensible sought to determine God's will. He already knew what he needed to know. He had known all along. What he had not done was to submit to living as God had already made clear.
We are not too different in our search for God's will. The problem is that we are not so concerned with God's will, so much as God's sanction of our decisions, ambitions, dreams, and desires. We force God's will into a little box of our pet concerns. We want to know God's will within a range of options we have preselected and limited. Determining to discover and follow what God really wants just seems too open-ended and makes us too uneasy. Are we ready to allow God free reign of our lives?
What is it that God is wanting of you that you have been shoving aside? Place your life focus on fulfilling God's will as already revealed in Christ Jesus. The lesser issues will fall into place.
“Lord, grant me the strength to seek your will, beginning by following the example of Christ Jesus.”
—©Copyright 2009 Christopher B. Harbin http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/
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