Foolishly

And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.”
Then Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin. And Saul numbered the people present with him, about six hundred men. - 1 Samuel 13:11-15

Yesterday we looked at the problem of being impatient while waiting for God to work. I want to go back today though and look at another aspect of the same incident – the foolishness of disobeying God.

Fool is a pretty harsh word – but God tells us in Psalms that is the fool who claims that there is not God. It is obvious that the verse can be taken to apply to those who deny the existence of God, but I don’t think one needs to be an atheist to say that there is no God in various situations.

In essence that is really what Saul did here and why Samuel said he was foolish. The situation looked desperate. The Philistines were ready to strike. Samuel was late. The sacrifice needed to be offered. God’s way was not working. In other words God wasn’t doing His part in Samuel’s eyes so he took it on himself.

It is easy for us to sit back and be critical. It seems so obvious that Saul should have waited on God’s plan. He was foolish to disobey.

But then how often do we act like God is not here? How often do we act like there is ‘no God’ on the scene? How often do we put our way first because God’s way is not working out?

We too are foolish we when wilfully choose to disobey God and do things our way. Let’s not do foolishly but instead trust God enough to let Him work.