Have you ever really, really wanted something only to get it and wish you hadn’t? It’s called buyer’s remorse. We have all had it in one way or another in our life. But why does it happen and what is the answer to lessen the chances of buyer’s remorse? That is what we are going to look at in today’s post for Blogging Through The Bible In 2020.
Eli and his sons have died just as the Lord said would happen. Therefore, Samuel is the priest and he has raised his sons to be priests. Samuel’s sons, like Eli’s previously, grew up but did not follow in their father’s footsteps. Samuel’s sons were so wicked that the people came to Samuel and said, “we don’t want a priest to rule over us anymore, we want a king.” This broke Samuel’s heart and he tried to talk the people out of it, but they would have none of it. The people knew what they wanted and they didn’t care what Samuel or even the Lord said about it. The Lord through Samuel told the people what the king would be like, but they wouldn’t listen. Today’s text is Samuel telling the people what would happen. 1 Samuel 8:18 says, “And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day.”
Wow, right? God told the people, if you go down this road, you are going to regret it, but I’m not going to bail you out. The people were about to experience a judgment from God that I am convinced we face a lot of times ourselves. The judgment was this, God was going to allow them to have exactly what they wanted. They thought they knew better than the all-wise, all-knowing God. They were about to find out just how much they didn’t know. Now, before you charge the Lord with the charge of that’s not fair, let’s understand something. As the Lord was telling Samuel when he tried to keep the people from wanting a king; the people weren’t rejecting Samuel, they were rejecting the Lord. Israel already had a king. He is the sovereign, all-knowing, all-powerful King of kings. He is the One who had delivered them out of Egypt and provided for them every step of the way once they left Egypt. He is God. They already had the best King possible. What it reveals is the stubbornness of the human heart. In our sin nature, we want to control our own destiny, we want to call the shots in our own lives. Instead of living under the best and most benevolent King, we want to be our own king. And just like our parents used to tell us, be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it.
The answer for Israel and the answer for you and I is the same, we need to realize that the true King is not only the only King, He is the best King. The prophet Isaiah declares that God knows the end from the beginning. That is, God knows how it is going to turn out long before we even see it on the horizon. So, why in the world would we, who only have finite knowledge, think we were better equipped to handle our lives and situations better than the One with infinite knowledge? Therefore, we need to spend more time in prayer and less time analyzing a situation, making a pro-con list, and trying to make the right choice. In prayer, we can learn not only what the right choice is for God’s glory and our good, but we can also learn to see that God’s choice is always the best choice. So let’s spend more time on our knees in humility admitting just how much we don’t know, so that God can reveal what He knows is best for us.
By His grace and for His glory,
Pastor Justin