February 11

Motivation is super low today.

And then this song starts playing in my head:
You are my hiding place…You always fill my heart with songs of deliverance whenever I am afraid. I will trust in You. I will trust in You. Let the weak say I am strong, in the strength of the Lord. I will trust in You!

Over and over again I sang that song to the Lord. My cry to Him this morning, “Help me. I will trust in You”!

Reading in 1 Samuel is very nice because it is an escape into another world. This section of the Bible is like reading a novel. So the reading today: 1 Samuel chapter 12.

Samuel, the one that Hannah had prayed so hard for, is now an old man. The leaders of Israel have demanded a king be appointed to rule for them like the other nations. Can’t you just hear their whining, “I want to have what they have. We should be just like them”. Meanwhile, God is shaking His head saying, “Why, when you have Me”? So you know already that this is going to turn out bad. Saul is appointed king. In this chapter of the book Samuel, the Prophet, is telling them like it is. There are a few points that he makes in the speech that really caught my attention. Samuel had integrity. His sons became corrupt, prophets before him were corrupt. In other words, yes, even back then, these ‘men of God’ accepted bribes from people and did all sorts of wrong things. And Samuel says in verse 4 – have I cheated anyone? Can anyone say I did them wrong? Samuel kept his integrity as a leader. And therefore, God blessed him. Is there a leader we can find today that has that same integrity? There are some, but just like back then, very few. How about you? Can you say to everyone you know, ‘There is nothing you can hold against me’? Next point. Samuel is telling all Israel about how they turned their back on God time and time again without cause. They forgot God’s power. He delivered them and blessed them countless times. But they always wanted what they thought was the next best thing. Guess what…there is no next best thing. Everything out there is empty. Worthless. Meaningless. Israel is living proof of that. Moving on to verse 14, “If you fear the Lord and serve and obey him and do not rebel against his commands, and if both you and the king who reigns over you follow the Lord your God – good”. In other words, it still does not matter that Israel wants a king to rule over, the point still remains – to love God and follow after all he says. Whether they have a king or not, God must still be there hope. I generally don’t like to get into politics, but this point relates to many people’s feelings with President Obama. They put all their hope and trust in a man instead of God. It does not matter if that man is going to do God’s will or not, this man or King Saul is not to be our hope. Final point, and this one gets personal. Verse 20, “…yet do not turn away from the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. 21 Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless”. This really made me sit up and pay attention. Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength is one of my favorite verses. And here it is again. You see, sometimes at night I go on the internet to play puzzle games. I like them because it’s sort of an escape for me. I like to use my mind to think about something other than whatever happened that day. Can you relate? But what I found by doing that is all I felt afterward was more tired, and frustrated because I could not beat the game. It really wasn’t that fun. And truth be told there were things that I needed to do but wasn’t because I was playing this game. One night, I realized what I was teaching my children, what statement I was making without saying a word, by doing this. I can relax and unwind with God’s word instead of a mindless video game. I can read God’s word and be so much more refreshed if that’s what I choose instead. Lessons learned.

Thank you Samuel for all your hard work and struggles.

Idols come in many forms and they are pretty stupid.