Day 20: Have It YOUR Way, But...

1 Samuel 12:12-13

New Living Translation (NLT)

Samuel anoints Saul as king.
Copyright Cook Communications Ministries

¹² “But when you were afraid of Nahash, the king of Ammon, you came to me and said that you wanted a king to reign over you, even though the Lord your God was already your king. ¹³ All right, here is the king you have chosen. You asked for him, and the Lord has granted your request.
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²⁵ But if you continue to sin, you and your king will be swept away.”

Ever have those moments when you want what you want, even though you know it's not what God wants for you? I do, frequently. Sometimes I have to really work hard to accept His will, and not try to justify my own will.

Yeah, the Israelites were having one of those moments when they demanded that they be given a king, so they could be like everybody else. All the other nations had a king, why couldn't they have one? It seemed to escape them that they already had a King to do exactly what they wanted a human to do. They had God as their King, God, who went before them in battle, who provided for them, who loved them! But that wasn't enough. The Israelites were just like most of us mere mortals... They wanted a King they could actually see with their own two eyes. It was just too difficult to keep focused on the invisible between miracles.

So God gave them what they asked for, but He put stipulations on it. He knew they wouldn't continue to keep His commands, which is probably why He chose a Benjamite to be their king in the first place. God had already chosen Judah to be the kingly line in the family. Still, what God gives, God anoints. And God most certainly anointed Saul. 

But the condition was that they had to straighten up and fly right or God would make sure to "sweep away" both they and their king.

Sometimes, when we're acting like pouty children throwing a tantrum for what we want, God will give in to our whining and let us have it. That doesn't mean that it was His will. It just means He's going to teach us a very valuable lesson from it. We can choose which lesson we're going to learn. We can thank God and make sure we serve Him faithfully in response to His acquiescence, in which we've learned a lesson of God's unfailing love despite our foolishness. Or, we can learn a much harder lesson... the lesson that we really aren't smarter than God, we really don't know what's best for us, and that if we'd quit being brats and TRUST Him, we'd be a whole lot better off.

After all, Father does know best.