12/10/2013 - A Prelude to a King

1 Samuel 3:11 - The Lord said to Samuel, "Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle.

A transition was about to take place.  They way in which God related to His people and they to Him was going to be forever altered.  The days of the judges were at an end and the age of the kings was about to dawn. 

It was not what God wanted for Israel.  He warned the people through Samuel that a king would bring to them a new level of oppression and difficulties.  Yet, he knew that the people would choose to have an earthy ruler.  More than anything, God knew something the people had yet to discover.  Faith is difficult, but flesh is easy. 

Our default programming is to embrace the physical.  When we begin to fall away in our relationship with God, we fall back into our old habits.  When we are not living to please Him, we live to please ourselves.  When we are not consciously focused on Him, we focus on us. 

Israel wanted a king because they thought it would make things easy, but in the end, it was a decision that would nearly destroy them.  

 Yet even in this disobedience, God would still move.  He would still carry out His plan of redemption He would still overcome the shortcomings of his people.  And ultimately, He would bring His people one step closer to Advent with a young boy...a shepherd named David.