Obedience is more important to the Lord than our sacrifices.

The Lord gave Saul explicit instructions — he was to go completely destroy the Amelekites.  But he did not.  Instead, he captured the king alive and kept the good livestock. Then he went and built a memorial to himself!  I don’t think he was concerned about the loss of life…the fact that he built a memorial to HIMself tells us a lot about the motivations of his heart.

Saul looked successful strutting around with the loot.  But God said,

“People judge others by what they look like, but I judge people by what is in their hearts.”

He was grieved at Saul’s betrayal, and he selected a new king…David.

What confuses me is a little blip in the timeline here.  After the Spirit of the Lord left Saul, he lost his mind and became easily afraid and upset.  Music soothed him…so David, the shepherd boy, was called in to play the harp for him and apparently goes to work for him as a musician.

Fast forward a couple chapters, and Saul is leading his army against the Philistines.  David — who is again a shepherd, not a musician — stands up to the giant that no one else will face, and he does it by faith.  But Saul doesn’t know him.  He asks his people who David is.

Does this mean that Saul lost his memories of the times that David played the harp for him?  Or did the Goliath victory happen before David played the harp for Saul?

It’s not important to the overall picture…but I do wonder why Saul did not recognize him.

I see in myself some of Saul’s tendencies to second-guess God.  I just watched the movie The Blind Side and was reminded of Jesus’ command that we feed and clothe and care for his sheep.  That lovely family took that teenage homeless boy into their home and LOVED him!  There was no second guessing there.  When they saw him walking in the cold rain wearing nothing but a t-shirt and shorts…they acted.

I pray that the Lord will give me courage to respond in a similar way to those he places in my path…and that I will not second-guess the inner nudge.