1 Samuel 12: 12 - 25
Ok. More on this king thing… So now the people of Israel have their king. It’s not mentioned in this section, but his name is Saul. He was a bad choice. Saul turned out to be a pretty rotten king.
We already knew from chapter 8, that this was a bad choice to want to have a king. And didn’t God warn them about the dangers of wanting a king? God knew that this was going to turn out to be a bad choice for Israel. But it wasn’t a bad choice without any hope for the situation. Here in chapter 12, God doesn’t just remind the people that their choice was a bad one, he encourages them to continue to follow and serve him, no matter who is in leadership of them. God will still bless the nation (and the leader) if, despite it’s bad choice, will continue to trust in him. “The Lord will not leave his people” is a great promise in v. 22.
It goes without saying that people make bad choices. You and I make bad choices. Even our nation as a whole makes bad choices. We may even make what are considered bad choices of who is to lead us. Young people, and especially those of sub-culture persuasion, often times are dissatisfied with many of our national politicians and their policies. Sometimes for very good reasons they are dissatisfied. I am too at times.
But even with those bad choices, there is the promise that God will not abandon us. It’s not the end of the world when bad choices happen. God will still work through the situation. Like Samuel in v. 23, we need to be in prayer for our nation and it’s leaders. Even if we disagree with the (bad) choice made to put them in control, they need prayer that they will seek God and lead according to his will.
And even if we disagree with policies they set, we need to do what is right, and not purposely disobey them as some sort of rebellion. This, of course may be a little different story if policies set are gravely dangerous to our faith. Fortunately, I don’t feel that we have experienced any such thing.
So today, pray for our national, state, and local leaders. Pray that they would seek God’s will in setting policies and laws. And yes, pray even for those and especially those, that may seem to be a bad choice for leading us.
Even though a bad choice is made, do not turn from serving God. (v. 20)
- Richard M.