In a recent reading of this passage, I found myself thinking about how King Saul, who begins so well, finishes in such a sad place. He is filled with fear, doesn’t hear from God, and doesn’t know where to turn. So, he goes to the occult—which he had banished from his kingdom, presumably because he knew God does not approve of such things. In his desperation for a word from the Lord he asks a medium to bring up Samuel. Samuel is not pleased and the word he speaks to Saul is that he and his sons will die as Israel’s armies lose to the Philistines. I cannot help but feel sorry for him at this point, but I wonder if this is the result of his failure to whole-heartedly follow God.
At some point, Saul seems to have become more concerned with his reputation than obedience to God. When Samuel spoke to Saul before he was anointed king, Saul responded to Samuel’s honoring by asking “Why have you spoken to me in this way?” He saw himself as being part of the smallest tribe, and of the humblest clan in that tribe. Yet after he has been king and experienced success in battle, there seems to be a different attitude. When Samuel told him that the kingdom would be taken from him because of his disobedience (when he had only partially done what God asked him to do) his response to Samuel was “I have sinned; yet honor me now before the elders of my people, and before Israel…” (1 Samuel 15:30) He begins trying to kill David after the women sing songs about Israel’s victories and they ascribe more slain enemies to David than to Saul. He tells Jonathan that it is wrong to protect David because David would take the kingdom from him—as if he had not already been told that his kingdom was being taken from him.
In thinking about this, I came to the conclusion that there is a price for whole-heartedly following God, but there is also a price for following God half-heartedly. Obedience may be costly at times, but so is disobedience. When life is hard, I do not want to be in the place of fear and desperation Saul found himself because he lacked connection to God.
Great article.