I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the Old Testament is a wild ride. Anyone who thinks the Bible is boring clearly needs to spend more time in the histories of the Old Testament. The action and the drama just won’t stop. A huge source of the drama comes from Israelites’ drive to claim the promised land and their struggle with all the surrounding nations trying to wipe them out.
In the midst of all that drama, Samuel is struggling to lead the ornery and rebellious Israelites when they get a terrible, no good, awful idea. “‘Look,’ they told him, ‘you are now old, and your sons are not like you. Give us a king to judge us like all the other nations have.’” (1 Samuel 8:5)
Seems like a good idea on paper, but Samuel knows better. God gives him the go-ahead to give the people what they want, but tells Samuel to deliver one last warning to the people before he gives them their way.
“‘This is how a king will reign over you,’ Samuel said. ‘The king will draft your sons and assign them to his chariots and his charioteers, making them run before his chariots. Some will be generals and captains in his army, some will be forced to plow in his fields and harvest his crops, and some will make his weapons and chariot equipment. The king will take your daughters from you and force them to cook and bake and make perfumes for him. He will take away the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his own officials. He will take a tenth of your grain and your grape harvest and distribute it among his officers and attendants. He will take your male and female slaves and demand the finest of your cattle and donkeys for his own use. He will demand a tenth of your flocks, and you will be his slaves. When that day comes, you will beg for relief from this king you are demanding, but then the Lord will not help you.’ 19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel’s warning. “Even so, we still want a king,” they said. 20 “We want to be like the nations around us. Our king will judge us and lead us into battle.’” (1 Samuel 8:11-20)
You don’t have to be a Biblical expert to know how well things went after that. Short answer: It’s an absolute disaster.
But this story, unfortunately, is not just restricted to the Old Testament. No matter how badly we want to shake our heads and say “Oh those silly Israelites” we can’t do so without needing to take a long hard look in the mirror. The truth is, we haven’t stopped this behavior for a minute since Israel asked for a king. We convince ourselves that everything would be ok if God just gave us the thing that everyone else has. If we just had that job, if we just made the same salary that that other guy makes, if we just could have kids like the other moms, if we could just have a house, if we could just have that thing, we would finally be secure and safe and comfortable.
We ask God for kings, we just use different names.
For me, I struggle with this in wanting a husband. Every time life gets hard and I have to deal with unpleasantness (especially confrontation) my knee-jerk reaction is to wish I had a significant other to bear this with me. If I’m really letting the situation get away from me, I get mad that I don’t. I think this would never happen if someone was there in my corner, looking out for me, and like a toddler throwing a tantrum I let God know it. It’s terrible. God is standing at the ready to fight for me, and all I can see is what I don’t have instead of what He’s given me.
I’m so quick to tell God he’s not taking care of me in the ways I want instead of trusting him to show up in ways that only He could.
Let me be clear, God is the only one who can meet your needs in their entirety. He may use things that can help meet our needs in the worldly, immediate sense. But our needs aren’t met fully by those things. A job may help us put food on the table, but who brought you the job in the first place? We’re so quick to worship the gift and not the giver. The problem is, when we worship the gift, we put pressure on it that it can’t withstand.
We’re asking people or things to do a job that they were never meant to be able to do. When we make them the source of our safety and security, they collapse under the weight. A job can fail or end, a spouse can hurt you as much as you hurt them, a child can defy you even as you pour love into them. The gifts God gives were never meant to be the things we worship. We’re made to worship the giver, not the gift. Only God can completely, and totally take care of our needs. He may use the things we want (or think we want) to accomplish his care of us, but they aren’t the things that save us.
We can’t lose sight of who actually saves, protects, sustains, and provides for us. Whatever the rest of the world is selling as the only thing you’ll ever need to be ok, it can’t possibly compare to having the God of the universe working things for your good. When we feel lack, when we feel the need to have a king like everyone else, that’s not proof that God isn’t taking care of us. That’s a chance to listen for his creativity in how he’ll accomplish a task.
Because God will never let you fall through the cracks. “Oops” is not in God’s vocabulary. If you are earnestly following him and are asking for His will in your life, he’s not going to miss a beat in your story. He knew what you were going to need long before you ever felt the lack of it. And believe me, he has something much better in mind than a little human king.
Hang on, Christian. The true king is working.
Let’s find some joy,
A
Avalon Robinson Author 