Getting Good Things God's Way
Some thoughts on 1 Samuel 8
Hey Reader-Friend,
[This post may be best illuminated if you take a gander at 1 Samuel 8:1-20.]
If you will, allow me to take you back almost 30 years to West High School in Iowa City, IA, where a young Heather Weber served as feature editor of the award-winning school newspaper, The West Side Story. I had the distinct privilege of deciding on feature content for each issue, managing page design and layout, and handing out writing and photography assignments to staff.
At the time, reports of teenagers around the country making homemade explosive devices were in the news, and stories of property damage and troubled youth seemed like great fodder for the WSS. So, I decided we’d run a feature story on the rise of homemade bombs. And, any good feature story in a high school paper needed original and compelling photography to go with it. In this case, we needed a photo that would capture the 90s grunge vibe of angsty teenage bomb-making.
Specifically, a staff photographer and I decided, we needed photos of fire (the conceivable aftermath of an explosion, see?).
The photographer and I planned to meet at the high school on a Saturday morning to discuss where and how exactly we could start a fire to photograph. In the parking lot, he opened his trunk and revealed an assortment of random flammable materials and chemicals, solvents, and liquids he’d swiped from his parents’ garage.
“Sounds great!” I said when he told me he’d start the fire inside a metal bucket and use the school’s main entrance as a backdrop to the photoshoot. His assistant photographer was on his way to help him, so I said I’d see them Monday and drove away without a care.
Friend, I’m sure you know whereabouts this is going.
On Monday morning, the journalism teacher called me to his office to tell me that the photographer and his assistant had been arrested when someone in the building dialed 911 because two boys were starting a fire outside the front door of the school.
As I heard how the weekend’s events unfolded, it dawned on me how close I had come to being arrested, suspended, charged, and convicted (as the boys later were—a conviction that came off their record when they turned 18). Despite wanting to be a cutting-edge editor with great photos for my stories, I had gone about getting a good thing in a gravely haphazard and reckless way.
Have you ever wanted a good thing and then tried to get it the wrong way? I am part of this club, and if you are, too, then you know that getting good things the wrong way can create a whole lot of trouble. You might also know that when you discipline yourself to wait for good things to come in the right way, in God’s way, there’s peace and blessing that often accompanies obedience.
Of course, peace in exchange for obedience doesn’t make obedience easy. It’s horrendously hard on our human nature to wait to get good things God’s way. We may be troublingly impatient. Or, we may conclude we don’t trust God is quite good enough to give us the good things we wait for.
In 1 Samuel 8, the elders of Israel wanted a good thing, too. They wanted just and stable leadership because the judges Samuel appointed were corrupt and dishonest. They also wanted peace within and around their borders. But instead of asking Samuel to remove the corrupt judges (Samuel’s sons!) from office and give them new ones, they rejected God’s chosen form of government and insisted on getting a king.
Up until this point, Israel had been a theocracy—led by God who appointed judges to administer justice and adjudicate conflicts. But now, the Israelites insisted on a king so they could be like other nations, so they could put their trust in the worldly power structures of a king and his kingdom.
The request for a king bent Samuel out of shape. He felt they were rejecting his leadership. But God said, “No, no. Samuel, don’t make this about you. It’s me they don’t trust. It’s my leadership they’re rejecting.” The elders’ rejection of God’s leadership was no narrative surprise. It was consistent with their rejection of the Lord from the time they were led out of slavery in Egypt. In other words, they had a track record of reaching for good things in ungodly ways.
Isn’t it true that we come to points of tension in our own lives where we, too, want to just take matters into our own hands? Where we too want to secure our futures, our destinies, and even the direction of the state and nation?
When we don’t trust in Jesus’ way, we too can be tempted to get good things the wrong way.
Our mistrust in Jesus’ way can show up in our posture toward political opponents. Instead of trusting his instruction to love and pray for our “enemies,” we can get angsty, bitter, unkind.
When we don’t trust Jesus’ way, we can cling to our resources with a scarcity mindset instead of practicing generosity.
When we don’t trust in Jesus’ way, we can become overconsumers who buy things to feel better or fit in.
And trying to get good things the wrong way mostly just explodes in our faces. We end up with big and little fires everywhere that need putting out.
When we fight and argue with others, we stir up and perpetuate strife and dissension.
When we cling to resources, we miss out on the blessing of blessing others and seeing God provide for our own needs.
When we overconsume, we end up with mountains of debt.
God in his kindness gave to Israel (and has given to us) two confounding gifts: First, he gives the power of choice—freedom to choose his way or our way, his wisdom or our own. Second, he gives the gift of foresight—often an exact enumeration of what will go wrong when we try to get things the wrong way. As a mom, I don’t always have the time or energy to explain to a kid why it’s not wise for her to, say, take a walk alone at midnight. Or to, say, put off her homework until the morning it’s due. But not God. God tells Samuel to tell the Israelites exactly what they can expect from the king they are asking for—a king who will take and take and take and take, starting with their own children.
Today, we may not have a living, breathing Samuel, but we have the witness of Scripture, of the early church—a great cloud of witnesses—and the witness of the Spirit to guide us in wisdom, to whisper directions and warning, to say to us, “This is the way. Walk in it!"
In this election year, if we are peacemakers instead of strife-stirrers, we’ll sow a harvest of righteousness that will produce good fruit for us and our world.
If we’re generous instead of stingy, we’ll receive a heavenly reward.
If we’re poor in spirit, turning the other cheek, praying for our enemies instead of trusting in our own strength or worldly power structures to coerce others into doing what we want…well, then we’re blessed.
Here’s my question for you today. What good thing do you want to get in God’s good way? Hold the line. Hang in there. Be patient. Stay steady. Don’t raid your parents’ garage for random inflammables and start a fire that will burn down something important. You’re so much smarter than that.