“Give us our own King.” The Israelites asked God to through the last judge Samuel.
The Israelites had no earthly king to rule over them even if they had leaders before. These leaders were judges and they always were handpicked by God to be used to ensure peace among the Israelites.
God did the choosing and qualifying.
But when the Israelites saw other nations have some sort of kingship system, they wanted the same, thus God gave them Saul. Now this system comes with its shortcomings. One’s seed (even if incompetent) is guaranteed a throne to reign from.
I think God was trying to avoid such scenarios as, we all see what happened after kings began to reign. A king would bear many sons and each when they came of age felt entitled to a sceptre. The likes of David had their own children plotting to kill them in order to ascend quick. He had to flee for his dear life.
My warning is to all of us: we tend to admire the things or positions others have and ask God for the same ignoring the would-be repercussions. My experience has been asking God for a job, yet He has given me books to write, an art business with unending potential, a public speaking ability of which I can earn from each of these.
Why the job seems against these is because I’m a creative. I’m always thinking and innovating, thus, being locked to an 8-5 daily, may frustrate the other potentials God has placed in me. If the job is to come, it has to — in every way — be able to exist in harmony with the rest of these other ‘entities’. I have to be extremely careful as I pray pertaining these then, for they too bring in cash the same way a job does for another person. My being self-employed doesn’t disqualify me from calling these ‘jobs’.
This could be about spouses as well. We tend to ask God for the same, simply because we’ve seen our friends get married. We, like the Israelites, demand for it. A preacher once said that even if God may permit this to happen, it doesn’t necessarily mean it was His perfect will. We tend to override His perfect will — ending up with Sauls.
He then has to spend time fixing our mistakes which we landed ourselves into, and though He does — and some we learn from — prevention is still better than cure. Things like wrong marriages aren’t that easy to undo.
So, I beseech you not to be moved by what others experience. Another preacher once said that even if God said He’d not withhold any good thing from you, He will withhold it, if it’s not good for you YET. More like how a parent can’t allow his or her 10-year-old to drive his or her jeep.
So we have to know what’s not good yet. We have to know what’s good now. We have to have His mind pertaining things so that we don’t ask amiss (1 Cor 2:16, James 4:3). Let’s trust in Him with all our hearts, leaning not on our understanding: which cries that we need things we don’t necessarily in essence need.
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