{"id":5799,"date":"2014-09-12T00:05:48","date_gmt":"2014-09-12T07:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5799"},"modified":"2014-09-11T23:53:23","modified_gmt":"2014-09-12T06:53:23","slug":"mizpah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/09\/12\/mizpah\/","title":{"rendered":"Mizpah"},"content":{"rendered":"

Samuel summoned the people to the LORD at Mizpah and said to them, \u201cThus says the LORD, the God of Israel, \u2018I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.\u2019 But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses; and you have said, \u2018No! but set a king over us.\u2019 Now therefore present yourselves before the LORD by your tribes and by your clans.\u201d <\/p>\n

Then Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot. He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its families, and the family of the Matrites was taken by lot. Finally he brought the family of the Matrites near man by man, and Saul the son of Kish was taken by lot. But when they sought him, he could not be found. So they inquired again of the LORD, \u201cDid the man come here?\u201d and the LORD said, \u201cSee, he has hidden himself among the baggage.\u201d Then they ran and brought him from there. When he took his stand among the people, he was head and shoulders taller than any of them. Samuel said to all the people, \u201cDo you see the one whom the LORD has chosen? There is no one like him among all the people.\u201d And all the people shouted, \u201cLong live the king!\u201d (1 Samuel 10:17-24)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Getting others to recognize God\u2019s will\u2014and to accept it\u2014may take awhile. If God can be patient, then you can be too. Samuel already knew who would become king. But he went through the motions of casting lots\u2014in essence, rolling dice or flipping coins\u2014because both he and God needed the people to recognize that it really was God selecting the king and not just Samuel picking a favorite. The Israelites believed that God\u2019s hand was involved in the casting of lots when they asked him to help them make decisions. And so, as the lot was repeatedly cast, the field became ever more narrow until at last, the lot fell on the individual whom God had determined all along would become king: Saul.<\/p>\n

And what of Saul? He wasn\u2019t surprised, either. Samuel had already told him that he would be king. Saul knew what was going on and he knew what the outcome would be. There could be no doubt in his mind. And yet, when the selection was made, Saul was hard to find, but not because he was busy. Saul had gone into hiding. Like Adam and Eve hiding from God in the Garden of Eden after they had eaten from the forbidden fruit, so Saul was hiding from God\u2014and the people of Israel. He was not pleased with God\u2019s will for his life. Abraham Lincoln compared being president to being tarred and feathered and that if weren\u2019t for the honor of the thing, he\u2019d have rather skipped it all together. Saul apparently could identify with that point of view.<\/p>\n

But like Adam and Eve discovered, so Saul discovered: you can\u2019t hide from God and you can\u2019t resist God\u2019s will. In the contest between our will and God\u2019s will, God always wins. <\/p>\n

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Samuel summoned the people to the LORD at Mizpah and said to them, \u201cThus says the LORD, the God of Israel, \u2018I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians and from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5799"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5799"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5801,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5799\/revisions\/5801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}