Tuesday, January 16, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Turning away and turning back
Margaret and I argue about things sometimes, usually when I’m in a bad mood. Or she is. Or we both are. Often it has to do with unfinished business, with procrastination on one or both of our parts. Our apartment space is small, so we move things around. It’s difficult for either of us to get rid of stuff. Then after awhile, one of us unloads our frustration on the other.
Samuel mourned for that good king, who became a bad king, Saul. God got tired of listening, and finally He unloaded his frustration on his servant.
How long will you grieve for Saul, whom I have rejected as king? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way to Jesse of Bethlehem. There you will find the new king that I have chosen.
Samuel did his best to postpone (procrastinate).
How can I go? Saul will hear and kill me.
If God acts like either Margaret or me (which He doesn’t), he would be rolling his eyes and sighing audibly, as he speaks to Samuel again.
Take a heifer and go! Say I have come to sacrifice to the Lord, and invite Jesse to the sacrifice. So finally Samuel did as the Lord commanded him.
As I write this I notice that God did not do much complaining. Instead he gave Samuel a project to get him out of his chair. Do this, do that. Fill your horn with oil, take a heifer, go!
Yesterday I called in to cardiac rehab and stayed home, because the weather promised to be full of freezing rain. That did not come, at least not by the time I would have been exercising my heart. I thought I could do the exercises here at home, and I could. But did I? Ah … no time. I waited too long. I procrastinated, and the time was gone.
Perhaps it need not go this way every day. The exercises are fun, stimulating, and make me healthier. I can’t help but think of Samuel and compare myself to him when I read the story from 1 Samuel 16. Like Samuel, once I get started my energy carries me along, and God leads me in the path of deciding how and what and when.
Samuel asked Jesse, “Are these all the sons you have?” Jesse spoke up, “There is still the youngest, who is tending the sheep.”
Samuel’s energy, too, carried him along, and eventually he got to David, the young boy who would become God’s new king.
God said, “There – anoint him, for this is the one!” Then Samuel, with the horn of oil in his hand, anointed him in the midst of his brothers, and from that day on, the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David.
Now this becomes David’s story. The energy and spirit of God will now guide him, although David too was human, and he was imperfect in his acceptance, then rejection, of that guidance. But in both success and failure, all his life, David learned to trust God more and more.
Margaret and I have been married 44 years, and we are human too. God speaks to us through each other. Sometimes we have ears to hear. Decades ago Margaret asked that we refrain from criticizing each other (there were plenty of others in our world to do that). When we do well, we praise and support each other. When we do poorly, we encourage and uplift each other. That makes our marriage safe and trustworthy.
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.
We succeed, and then we fail at these worthy tasks. Over and over we come back to have another go. God speaks to us through each other. That’s the truth. Both of us are grateful for God’s voice, even we do not always hear it.
(1 Samuel 16, Psalm 89, Ephesians 1, Mark 2)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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