The Story of God: Kingdom
As we left off the story last week, the Israelites were finally set to be their own nation. God established a covenant with them on what their relationship with him would look like, and they were bound for the land he had promised to them. You would think it would all be rosy from here on out…right?
Unfortunately, things don’t always work out perfectly in any relationship, and this one is no different! In the early stages, Israel had no king but God himself. He used a series of judges to help lead the people and maintain justice, but he was King. As Judges 2:16-23 tell us, this worked at times, but other times it didn’t as the people went their own way.
In 1 Samuel 8 the Israelites continued to push things their own direction as they told God they didn’t want him to be their king. They wanted to have a human king and be like the other nations around them. God lets them have their way. The first king, Saul, went his own way and God pretty much gave up on him. Ultimately, as we will see this week, God did place a man “after his own heart” — David — on the throne. Through David’s leadership and submission to God, Israel became a great nation.
The fascinating thing about this series of events is that even though things don’t go the way God lines them up to, he continues to shape things in the direction he intends. The people didn’t want God as king, so God gives them a king who still leads them to become a great kingdom. As usual, all of this brings about a few questions we invite anyone to dialogue about:
- Why do we as humans keep wanting to do things our own way even when the ultimate power in the universe tries to guide us another direction?
- Does it trouble you that God seems to give in to their dreams, and yet still work things out in his favor? Does it seem like he is just manipulating the circumstances regardless of what they want?
- How have you seen God take poor choices you have made and still work them out for his greater purpose?
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:33 pm
I’ll put my traditionally simplistic view out there on the first two questions to get the discussion started.
Working under the assumption that the creation of man was for the glory of God, it is almost a requirement that mankind be given not only the ability but the inclination to rebel and do things our own way. If God made mankind and forced them to obey and to follow him, it would have showcased His power, but not His greatness. I think that we are pre-wired to try things our own way because when we finally do come to the conclusion that our way is not the right way, it maximizes the greatness of God. Having someone choose to love and follow you is much more significant than forcing someone to love and follow you.
I don’t really like the way question 2 is worded because it seems to imply that there is a disconnect between things working out in God’s favor and things working out in our favor (I’m using the royal “our” to mean all of mankind, not just a couple of us). If we believe that there is an overall plan, and I have to otherwise a lot of things that happen don’t make any sense, and we believe that we worship a caring and loving God, then we need to believe that the overall plan is for our own good. As I always seem to do, I relate the relationship with God to a parenting relationship. When your child is young, you have a grand plan of things you want for them – happiness, a sense of self worth, etc. As a wiser parent, you know that there are some choices that will generally lead them down the right path and some that will not. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to let your children make choices that you know are wrong because they need to experience things themselves and to come to their own conclusions. In the end, especially for young children, we always try and work in the background to make sure that their actions don’t cause any permanent harm. You have to let your children out to experience things when they are young and you can still help them rather than letting them grow up sheltered. Lifestyle mistakes are kind of like chicken pox. If you have them when you’re young, they are relatively harmless and easy to get over. The older you get, the more painful and dangerous they become.
I think that’s all I’ve got for now.