Day 20-21 1st Samuel

Needless to say that I am quite behind in my blog. This is also needless to say, but I am still behind in my reading.

I was supposed to be done with 1st Samuel on Monday, but it is now Thursday. That means I have a lot of reading to catch up. And a lot of blogging to catch up.

But first, I want to give you my really bad excuse as to why I am so far behind... college football. At first football only got in the way of my blog (Judges and Ruth), but then it became priority over reading the Bible.

See bad excuse... and this weekend I won't have that excuse, because I am limiting myself to watching just one football game (UM/ND). So, I will have plenty of time to read the Bible and stay caught up with things that should be priorities.

Thank you to those of you who have bugged me about it. I need the accountability.

Now... enough really poor excuses... 1st Samuel.

Saul, Samuel, and David are the main characters in this book. Samuel is a prophet (not a priest like I originally thought). Saul is a bad king. David is God's chosen (soon to be) king.

If you would have asked me last week what Samuel's position was in Israel, I would have said that he was a priest. He served with Eli. He prepared sacrifices. I just assumed he was a Levite.

I was wrong. 1 Samuel 1:1 was really confusing for me. Samuel was from the tribe of Ephraim. Then, as I continued to read, Samuel was not a priest. I had been thinking he was the high priest.

But, it makes sense that he is a prophet since he is speaking for God and (get this) prophesying.

Saul was a bad king. I think that it is interesting that the first king that God lets Israel have is a poor one. Saul seems like the perfect choice as king. He is tall and handsome.

If I am picking a king, I want those leadership qualities. Tall and handsome. What is this high school? Really Israel? Pick a king because he is tall and handsome?

But then I think about what I learned in history class that since the invention of television, the "better looking" candidate has won the election in America almost every time. We aren't so different, are we?

Then, there is David. The youngest in his family. No leadership training. His father and brothers don't even think to bring him to the house to possibly be picked as king.

God picks the king that He knows will serve Him. God picks the leader who is following His voice. God picks a king who is spiritually mature, even though he is physically just a child.

David probably has as much faith as anyone in the entire Bible. He is up there with Paul and Daniel. They are probably my top 3.

I don't know about you, but as a teenager I don't think I ever fought a giant. I never led an army into battle and completely destroyed the opposition.

As a teen, I was worried about running sprints in soccer practice and who killed Lincoln and whether this girl who I was too afraid to talk to liked me. (BTW... the best way for someone to like you is to not talk to them... and if you believe that I have some ocean front property in Montana to sell you)

And you can say... back in the day teens weren't teens. And you can talk about how teens didn't exist like we know them until the invention of high school in the early 1900s. But the point is, God was preparing his leader as a child.

In America, what do we expect of teens? We expect them to go to school, not get into (too much) trouble (or at least don't get caught), and basically act immature while beginning to become independent.

That is completely different than what David was doing. David was leading armies. David was a national hero and not because he could shoot a ball into a basket (it was some one's skull instead).

Our culture has spread this adolescent trend from just 13-18 year-olds to about 9-25 year-olds. And you can see it spreading even further in the near future.

At what point do we expect our children/ourselves to "grow up?" I'm not saying "grow up" to mean be boring. I'm saying "grow up" to mean be mature.

David was "a man after God's own heart." Don't you want that to be said of you/your kids? I want God to say that about me.

David wasn't put in charge of the armies because he was tall or handsome. He was placed by God in positions of leadership, because of his faith. David didn't waste years of his life "having fun."

David spent his whole life seeking God and serving God.