1 Samuel 15 3/5
16 Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on. 17 And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed thee King over Israel? 18 And the Lord sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed. 19 Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord?
At times in our lives, we have all been big in our own sight. Some of us might still be there. When we see the above verses, it is clear that Saul was made King when he was small in his own sight, but made mistakes when he was big in his own sight. Pride alters our relationship with God. It affects our view of God's kingship. We have an appearance of obedience.
20 And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the King of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. 21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal.
Saul debates with Samuel that he did obey, all the while displaying the evidence of unbelief — King Agag and the animals and booty. However, like a car salesman blaming a car fault on things out of his control, Saul even tried to blame the people who took orders from him. He tried to personally exonerate himself and separate his sins from those of his people, the others in the war.
I see this mistake often in the workplace, where managers or supervisors prefer not to obey some company procedures because they don't see them as necessary, not appreciating that workers follow their example (it is the same with parents).
To add to that, many managers blame workers for perpetual breaching of procedures, because they don't have the intestinal fortitude to correct it. They lack that hallmark of leadership — the guts and intuition to follow higher commands. They don't understand the more profound necessity for procedures, which they think are just poorly-written suggestions, and more a barrier than a guide.
God weighs actions…the things we should be doing after we know what He requires.
When we look at King David, Saul’s replacement, who also sinned just as badly, we see he blames himself. No internal lying or attempts to deceive God. When David sent Uriah the Hittite to the front to die so he could have his wife, Bathsheba, he didn’t try to blame the soldiers who took him there. The buck stopped with him!
To help us follow obediently, when we read the Lord's teachings to us it is helpful to interpret WHY God wrote them like they are, so we are on-board with the understanding. Then both we and God walk in unity. Most times, we don't look at the depth of scripture or the history of it to understand the principles behind it.
Today's prayer: Dear Lord, thanks for the patience you have had with me over time. Please help me to be fair dinkum in my walk with you.
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