There’s a lot that we can learn from King Saul’s demise. He was the first king of Israel. Anointed by the prophet Samuel to lead the children of Israel. God chose him, but came to regret His choice. Saul, let Him down.
Saul failed to honor a commandment of God and so Samuel informs him that God will take the kingdom away:
“The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart” – Samuel 13:14.
It wasn’t Saul’s sin, his disobedience, or his acts of defiance that cost him the throne though. Saul had a heart problem. His heart was the problem.
Once God realized Saul’s heart wasn’t with him, He stopped speaking to him. The silence drove Saul mad. He became erratic. Paranoid. He was swirling in chaos. Saul became consumed with trying to fix his spiritual heart problems through physical, natural means. He goes from trying to impress God with sacrifices to becoming prideful and starting a mission to preserve his throne. The prophet Samuel admonishes Saul again:
Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. – 1 Samuel 15:22
Samuel is clearly saying, you can’t gift your way into God’s favor. You impress God with your obedience and obedience springs from a heart that’s soft, and submissive to the will of God.
How is your heart today? Is it tender? Is it submissive? Is it willing to say ‘not my will Lord, but your will be done?’ When you sin, is it a struggle to repent? Does your heart yearn to spend time with God?
Let’s not be like King Saul, a man who spun further and further out of control the harder his heart got. A man who eventually gave an order to kill 85 priests. Let’s strive for softness. So that as we go along our journey of life, God will not depart from us as He did Saul. So God will not have a change of heart and regret choosing us – “The Lord regretted that He had made Saul King over Israel” – 1 Samuel 15:35
May this never be our testimony.
