To Encourage You

1 Samuel 28:6-7 “And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets. Then Saul said to his servants, ‘Seek out for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.’”

Do you have a plan B when it comes to following the Lord?  In other words, although you have good intentions, although you really want to do what God says, when the squeeze is on do you tend to do something else?  That’s how Saul lived. That was the consistent pattern of his life. 

One of the first examples was soon after Saul became king.  He went to Gilgal at the prophet Samuel’s direction. He was to wait there for seven days until Samuel arrived, at which time Samuel would offer sacrifices to God and give Saul further instructions.  However, when Saul got there a vast host of the Philistines was threatening to attack Israel.  Because he was afraid, he decided to take matters into his own hands and offer sacrifices to God himself.  It was a clear violation of God’s Word to him through Samuel (1 Samuel 10 and 13). Then there was the matter of the Amalekites.  Saul was instructed by God to completely destroy this wicked kingdom.  He was to destroy all the people and all the livestock as well.  But what did Saul and his army do? They attacked the Amalekites; however, they kept the king alive as well as the best of the sheep, oxen, calves and lambs. Saul blamed the people for this, but as the king of Israel, the buck stopped with him.  It was because of this sin that the kingdom was taken from him.  Then there was the matter with David.  Although he repeatedly regretted his actions, Saul continually reverted to persecuting him rather than accepting the fact that David was the Lord’s anointed to be Israel’s next king.  And in one of his final acts, we have the account above from 1 Samuel 28. Here Saul is facing the threat of attack from the Philistines.  He was afraid (as he so often was in life) and cried out to the Lord.  The Bible doesn’t tell us how long he did this, but whatever the time frame, God didn’t answer on Saul’s terms, so he did something else – he turned to a medium.  It was his plan B.  What a sorry substitute this was for following the Word of the Lord. But it was just one more example of a lifetime of second-guessing God’s Word.

So, what about you and what about me?  Do we trust what God has told us in His Word, or do we trust up to a point, but when the squeeze is on do we revert to our own ideas?  Have you noticed how so many, when they face difficulties in life resort to alcohol, drugs, or some other “better” solution than to seek the Lord?  Maybe you know that the Lord has clearly told us that know Him to “not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).  Yes, you know that, but you see the issues that make you anxious as somehow different, and although God has said this, there must be something else, something better, something that makes more sense. So you turn not to the Lord but to secular counselors and their remedies, for that’s what “everyone else” does. 

You see, the Word of God is sufficient for all of life.  2 Peter 1:3-8 tells us this: “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

You see, just as Saul had God’s Word and God’s promises, we do too.  And just as Saul would have been so much better off if he had actually heeded God’s Word and God’s promises, we would be too.  But are we doing this? Are we reading God’s Word? Are we delving deep into it and consuming it like the bread of life that it is? Does our heart beat with the love of Christ and do we seek to obey Him at every turn? Or, like Saul, do we have a “better way,” a plan B, a more reasonable way to live.  Well, if we do, we should remember that the Bible has also told us that “the wisdom of this world is folly with God” (1 Corinthians 3:19). 

Plan B: it’s the plan of the fool.  May God give us the wisdom to reject it. May He help us to always remember that truly “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:1-2).