Learning to obey God
By Jessica Brodie
Have you ever done something you knew wasn’t right, but you justified it “for the greater good?”
I have. A lot. I’ve lied to friends to “keep the peace.” I’ve told my husband “nothing’s wrong” and brushed an issue under the rug to avoid a fight. Once, when I was a teen, I sneaked out of the house at two a.m. to help prevent something bad from happening. I figured my parents would be pleased; they most decidedly were not.
There’s a sick feeling that goes along with this, isn’t there? At first, you might think it’s a good idea—no one will know, it’s not hurting anyone, or maybe even God (or the world, or your parents or teachers) will appreciate the net results and forgive this one teensy-weensy indiscretion.
Then ethics and morals start to weigh on your heart, and even when the happy ending does happen, your joy is gone.
You know how cheating on that one little question tarnishes the “A-plus” feeling because you know deep down it wasn’t deserved? Or how winning the race with some extra help from a performance-inducing drug wasn’t really winning, after all, even if you did get the gold medal?
Reading the Bible this morning, it hit me that King Saul needed to learn this lesson big time. If you’re familiar with the story of the first kings of Israel beginning in 1 and 2 Samuel, God’s chosen people clamored for a king to rule over them, so God led his prophet Samuel to Saul, who became king. Saul wanted to serve God, and he tried, but Saul was all-too-human, and his pride and ego won out again and again over faith, obedience, and doing right in the Lord’s eyes. The sad part was most of the time—as with many of us!—Saul didn’t even realize where he was going wrong.
For example, in 1 Samuel 15, God said he wanted to punish the Amalekites for the wrongs they had done to Israel, so through Samuel, God ordered Saul to go wage holy war against these people, and to wipe out every person and animal so nothing was left of their evil.
Saul did—except he decided to destroy most everything, sparing the most valuable, such as the choice sheep, cattle, fattened calves, and Agag, the Amalekite king himself. It was “sort of” obedience. On the surface, Saul had succeeded in overthrowing the Amalekites, but he bent the rules a little—and God was not happy.
Samuel the prophet, who had anointed Saul as king, went immediately to Saul when God revealed His distress. And what did Saul say? He justified what he’d done, saying he didn’t mean to disobey God, but he just figured God would appreciate having the choice plunder for a sacrifice on the altar at Gilgal.
Not so, Samuel told Saul: “Does the Lord want entirely burned offerings and sacrifices as much as obedience to the Lord? Listen to this: obeying is better than sacrificing, paying attention is better than fat from rams, because rebellion is as bad as the sin of divination; arrogance is like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected what the Lord said, he has rejected you as king” (1 Samuel 15:22-23 CEB).
In life, we know we’re supposed to follow the rules, including every one of the Ten Commandments—not just “don’t kill” or “don’t have other gods” but also don’t lie and don’t envy. It’s not about living well and coming out on top at the end of our lives with a golden nest egg and the world-traveling retirement of our dreams. It’s about the condition of our souls, about doing right in God’s eyes and not our own, about being in proper alignment with the Lord and not the world.
Saul’s downfall was his arrogance. God wants our obedience.
We know Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, that as He said, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). We know that we access God’s Kingdom by repenting and believing in Jesus.
But we are also bound to obey God’s rules, which Jesus Himself told us repeatedly. As He said in Matthew 19:17, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There’s only one who is good. If you want to enter eternal life, keep the commandments.” And as He said in Matthew 5:17, “Don’t even begin to think that I have come to do away with the Law and the Prophets. I haven’t come to do away with them but to fulfill them.”
Obeying God is honoring God, and honoring God is loving God. I pray I can think about that next time I’m tempted otherwise.