obedience vs. sacrifice
"...but i did obey God..." saul seems to think that he's done the right thing here. not only the right thing, but he feels like he has gone above and beyond the call of God, thought of a better way to use the resources that God clearly told him how to use. God wasn't pleased with saul's disobedience, even though saul had (at least in his explanation) good intentions and motives for doing what he did.
in high school english class we were taught to read what characters say with a certain level of skepticism, as some characters will lie or embellish in a story to make themselves look better. i think that saul was probably doing some of that here: backpedaling, coming up with great reasons why he showed weakness and allowed the people to do whatever they wanted. i think that he was probably scared of the people or greedy...or a little bit of both...there in the moment.
but let's just give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he really did think it all through, that he intentionally allowed israel to plunder the cattle and brought back the king all for the glory of God... in that case, saul chose to use resources that God had given him in a way contrary to how God had told him to use them. like God giving me a hundred bucks and saying "give this to the third person you see," but instead i call my banker, tell him to invest it, earn three hundred bucks and buy a plaque that says "God is awesome."
while it may be true that God is in fact awesome, the point is that God told me to use the money differently. the same goes for saul. he was disobedient. he was foolish. and the fact is that i do this crap all the time.
maybe i don't hear God telling me what to do, maybe i genuinely think i have a better plan, or maybe i just relent to pressure in a moment of weakness. but the point is that every time that i look back on a decision not to trust God, i regret it.
turns out, so did saul. thank God that He hasn't rejected me yet.
Created almost 2 years ago
