Tuesday 19th March 2019 - Daily Reading:
1 Samuel 10:17-27 - A Good Gift by Becky White
We perhaps tend to think of Saul as being a failure of a king. Certainly his reign did not end well. Yet, Saul was chosen by God for the role, in response to the people’s request for a king. God did not choose badly. He chose the kind of king that the Israelites wanted, and made sure that he was strong, wise, humble, thoughtful – he had many of the qualities that would make a really good king.
Saul’s biggest problem, like all of us, was that he was human, and prone to making bad choices and falling into sin. This is what the people asked for when they asked for a human king. God did not give them a terrible king to teach them a lesson. No, he gave them a good man to be king. What followed was inevitable because of our human condition. Only God himself could be a perfect king.
A king is also dependent on having people who will follow him as king. From the very first day of his reign, Saul could see that some grumbled against him and did not want to honour him. He was wise enough to keep quiet about it, but no leader can guarantee the loyalty of all those he leads, and many a good leader has fallen into poor decisions driven by the grumbling of those he is leading.
Leadership is a huge responsibility. Leaders are held to a higher standard than those they lead. Yet, as followers, we also have a responsibility to remember that our leaders are human beings, just like us, and that they will make mistakes, make poor choices, and sometimes be tempted into sin, just like we are. This is why we are called to pray for them. It is not enough to judge them. We must also ask ourselves what we have done, as followers, to support, encourage, uphold and honour our leaders.
No human can be as God to us. No human can lead perfectly, always guide wisely, always make the right decisions. And yet that flawed human leader may still be the person God has anointed and appointed to the role. With their new king in place, the Israelites were about to learn what it means to be led by another human who, although being chosen by God, suffers from the same frailties as any other person. Whether we are leading, or following, may we demonstrate the grace of God towards others that we so desperately need for ourselves.