With each step I took, I begged the Lord to intervene on my behalf. I had waited long enough; it was time for my financial situation to improve. Surely God would listen to my desperate, repeated cries for help.
I had recently been interviewed for a promotion at work and was sure getting it represented the answer to my monetary woes. As I awaited the decision of the hiring manager, I spent my late-afternoon five-mile runs pleading with the Lord to give me the position I earnestly desired.
Then something unexpected happened. One day, God showed up toward the end of my run and changed my entire outlook on my past. My self-centered imploring of Him to improve my economic well-being switched to a prayer that sounded something like this: “Lord, I have been through so many years of disappointment, pain, and turmoil. Surely you must have a purpose for all I’ve endured. I still want this job, but after shedding so many tears all these years, I don’t want to miss your plan for my life, even if it means losing out on this career advancement. I want what you want.”
Rather than attempting to force the Lord to act, I had finally reached the place of entrusting Him with my future. Once I said I wanted what He wanted for my life, I felt closer to Him than I had in a very long time. Although my waiting on the Lord did not end (I didn’t get the job), I look back on that day as a significant turning point in my walk with Jesus.
King Saul, the first biblical figure in our study, reflected the same impatience I exhibited before God interrupted my run that day. When confronted with a dangerous and impossible situation, Saul foolishly plunged ahead without waiting for the Lord. As we will see, while the king’s sacrifice appeared to be made with pious motives, it reflected both disobedience and a lack of faith.
We learn many things about waiting from King Saul’s example. This insight, however, doesn’t come from his godly character but from his failure in all the tests the Lord put before him.
The excuses he offered after one of his disobedient acts provide valuable lessons on how we can avoid the pitfalls of misguided reasoning that leaves out dependence upon the Lord.
Before we examine Saul’s feeble attempts to explain his ill-fated decision, let’s look at Israel’s ominous situation as a large and well-armed Philistine army assembled and prepared to attack the much smaller nation (1 Samuel 13).
The king had valid reasons to be afraid; his situation looked bleak, at best.
It’s Impossible
The account we’re looking at on this occasion begins with a bold and successful attack by Jonathan, Saul’s son, on the Philistine outpost at Geba (1 Samuel 13:3). King Saul announced the victory to Israel (albeit by taking credit for the accomplishment himself), hoping it would rally his soldiers to fight against their long-time foe (vv. 3–4). It didn’t. The number of soldiers remaining with him dwindled from three thousand down to six hundred (1 Samuel 13:2, 15).
The Philistines, on the other hand, had no problem putting together a large and fierce fighting force. First Samuel 13:5 says they had “thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen and troops like the sand on the seashore in multitude.” This demonstration of power understandably struck fear in the hearts of the Israelites.
Instead of joining Saul, the “men of Israel” hid in caves, in holes (or pits), behind rocks, or anywhere else they could find protection (1 Samuel 13:6). Some crossed to the other side of the Jordan River (1 Samuel 13:7). Later, we discover that potential Israeli soldiers even went over to the side of the Philistines until Israel gained the upper hand (1 Samuel 14:21).
Afterward, it got even worse for the king. First Samuel 13:19–22 reveals that, on the day of battle, only Saul and Jonathan had a sword or spear. The Philistines had earlier taken away Israel’s blacksmiths to keep the Hebrews from making such weapons. The Israelites thus needed to rely on clubs, slingshots, and crude bows and arrows to fight against the warriors on chariots and a huge Philistine army that actually possessed swords, spears, and bows with metal-tipped arrows.
No wonder so many of the Israelites chose to hide rather than join Saul and fight against such a well-armed enemy. What good were clubs against swords and chariots? How could they even hope to prevail with so few weapons?
Previously, God had told King Saul to wait seven days for the prophet Samuel to arrive to offer a sacrifice and tell Saul what to do (1 Samuel 10:8). While this initial command for Saul to wait appears to have been at the beginning of his reign, 1 Samuel 13:8 reveals the king clearly understood that he needed to wait seven days for the prophet on this occasion as well.
What was the significance of Samuel arriving to offer this sacrifice? Earlier, in 1 Samuel 7, we read that Israel faced a similar threat from the Philistines. As the Israelites watched their enemy advance, Samuel offered a sacrifice and the Lord put the Philistine army into a panic, leading to a great victory for Israel (1 Samuel 7:5–13).
Saul Doesn’t Wait
The delay in Samuel’s arrival on this occasion posed a critical test for Saul. Would the king trust the Lord and wait for Samuel, or would he take matters into his own hands?
Saul, seeing his men scatter in response to the Philistine threat, caved to the mounting pressure and offered the sacrifice before the prophet arrived (1 Samuel 13:9, 10). When Samuel came shortly thereafter to find smoke still flowing upward from the fire on the altar, the king went out to greet the prophet as though he had done nothing wrong. He didn’t understand the significance of his disobedience. After all, he had offered a sacrifice to God; what harm could there possibly be in that?
Some commentators believe Saul’s sin was in assuming the role of a priest to present the sacrifice. While that’s possible, other passages speak of a king performing that duty when the text assumes one or even a large group of priests were present, such as in 2 Chronicles 7:4–5. Further, Samuel doesn’t specifically rebuke the king for acting as a priest, but for disobeying the specific command to wait for him before offering the sacrifice (1 Samuel 13:13).
After listening to Saul’s excuses, Samuel told the king he had “acted foolishly” by going against the Lord’s instructions. The prophet said that, because of Saul’s disobedience, God would choose someone else through whom He would establish a lasting kingdom (1 Samuel 13:13–14).
Samuel left without giving the king any counsel from God regarding the upcoming battle. Surprisingly, Saul didn’t try to stop Samuel and plead with him for direction about how to proceed against the Philistines.
A Strategy For Waiting
We all face challenging times when the Lord makes us wait for an answer to a prayer, a way out of a dilemma, or the fulfillment of an urgent need. Our situation may not be as desperate as that of King Saul, but nonetheless we’re tempted to run ahead of God seeking our own solutions.
The reasons Saul gave for his disobedience help us understand where his thinking went awry and provide valuable insights as to how we can avoid taking on that faulty perspective. An examination of the king’s excuses, in fact, lays out a strategy we can use when God makes us wait, even in the midst of frightening and seemingly impossible situations.
1. Focus on Christ, Not the Mess
Samuel confronted Saul with a simple, yet probing, question on that fateful day: “What have you done?” In response, Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattering, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Micmash.… I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering” (1 Samuel 13:11–12). As he waited for the prophet’s arrival, Saul fixed his attention on his deserting army, Samuel’s delay, and the massive force assembling against Israel.
In other words, Saul focused on the mess rather than on the Lord. While his situation was indeed dire, he erred by taking his eyes off of the One who alone could deliver Israel from the Philistines.
We can almost hear Saul calculating and comparing his army to that of the enemy: “How am I going to make this work? How many more men can I afford to lose? I can’t let this situation get any more desperate; I have to do something.” In light of the Philistine threat, however, no amount of planning or human intervention was going to save him from devastating defeat and certain death.
The king never reached the point where he fully grasped the impossibility of his situation. Even if he had kept all his men, he would have had a mere three thousand unarmed soldiers. On a human level, what could they have done against the thousands of Philistine chariots and a multitude of armed soldiers? Saul sought in vain to hold on to what he had, not fully comprehending the overwhelming odds against him. He didn’t see that only the Lord could save him in his current predicament.
Saul didn’t understand that, with God, there are no impossible situations. The level of our hopelessness does not limit His ability to solve our problems. His power is infinite. He can deal with our messes, regardless of how overwhelming they seem. As the Lord told the prophet Jeremiah, “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27). The Lord is more than able to deal with any troubling circumstances we face.
An account from the Gospel of Matthew illustrates our need to focus on Christ rather than on our circumstances. When Jesus walked on the water toward His disciples, who were in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, Peter asked if he could walk out to meet Him (Matthew 14:25–28). The Lord told Peter to come, “but when he [Peter] saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me’” (Matthew 14:30).
Did you catch that? Peter sank not when he stepped onto the water, but when he took his eyes off Jesus. Isn’t this what we often do as well?
Like the apostle, we falter when we allow the dark storm clouds around us to divert our attention from our Lord. When we find ourselves in an impossible situation, that’s the time to realize our only hope is in Christ.
The first lesson on waiting that we learn from King Saul’s impatience is to fix our eyes on the Lord rather than on the storm raging around us: Focus on Christ rather than the mess.
2. Don’t Buy Into the World’s Reasoning
Saul’s words in 1 Samuel 13:12 reveal another area where his thinking went far off course: “I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord.’ So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.” The king disobeyed because he thought the sacrifice itself would prevent more troops from leaving(see 1 Samuel 13:11) and would help him gain God’s favor.
Saul didn’t understand the purpose of the sacrifice. It wasn’t to secure God’s favor; Israel already had that in large measure. Nor was it a time to keep the troops he already had with him. This was to be the time the king would hear the Samuel’s instructions as the prophet rallied the people to look to the Lord for deliverance.
Saul’s excuse revealed his misplaced faith.
Rather than trust God to deliver Israel, Saul put his hope in the offering itself to keep his soldiers from fleeing, to please God, and to rescue the nation from the Philistines. The king relied on the action—the sacrifice—rather than on God, who alone could deliver Israel from the dire threat.
In other words, Saul believed the ends would justify the means.
Since the sacrifice would lead to what he believed would be a positive outcome, Saul reasoned that his action was necessary even though he knew it was disobedient to the Lord.
The king did not stop to ask himself how defying the Lord’s instruction to wait would help with his impossible situation. He focused solely on the results, no matter how he achieved them.
Such pragmatic reasoning remains popular today. It’s common for people to believe that results determine whether actions are right or wrong. If everything turns out okay, many folks believe their behavior must have been the right thing to do. Such thinking, however, ignores the standard established by God’s Word. Pursuing positive outcomes never justifies acting contrary to what the Word of the Lord instructs. Instead, it displays devotion to temporal results at the expense of eternal realities.
The standards of right and wrong revealed in Scripture have clearly lost their foothold in our culture. Society openly rebels against the Lord’s principles and substitutes shifting values based on the need of the moment, feelings, or the voice of the majority. Such relativism is rampant in our world—as it is, sadly, in most churches as well. Many people, including professing Christians, openly defy God’s Word and its values and substitute shifting sentimentality that puts their view of love far above the words of Scripture.
About thirty years ago, Dr. Jeff Gilmore, senior pastor of the church I attended at the time, said something that caught my attention: “In God’s way of thinking, success is just as much the process as it is the final outcome.” The Lord is just as much interested in our faithfulness during the storm as He is with the final outcome—perhaps even more so. Through our faithfulness, according to Dr. Gilmore, we can become heroes in God’s sight even before the end of the trials He sends our way.
In the midst of troubling situations, we naturally put our hope on the light at the end of the tunnel; we look forward to the time when our affliction will end. God, however, wants to accomplish much within us during the tempest.
Using the reasoning of world will cause us to copy Saul’s behavior as we become increasingly impatient with the Lord and feel tempted to take shortcuts to improve our situation. What harm is there in cheating on my taxes or in misrepresenting my qualifications to a potential employer? Such logic, however, ignores the fact that the Lord is just as interested in how our faith holds up during the storm as He is with what happens after it.
In contrast to the results-oriented Saul, God wants us to become process-oriented people. I must admit this is much easier said than done, but it’s something that can greatly encourage us when we’re facing daunting challenges.
Hebrews 11:33–34; 36–38 reveals a variety of outcomes for Old Testament heroes who chose to walk by faith. The text says:
[Some] conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of flames, and escaped the edge of the sword…. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
Notice the wide range of results that come from having the same faith in the same Lord. Right in the middle of a sentence, the outcomes switch from conquering kingdoms to being tortured, afflicted, and even martyred.
Who can know where our walk of faith will take us? The Lord, through the writer of Hebrews, honors those the world regards as failures, stating “the world was not worthy of them.” God saw their lives as success stories because of their faithfulness during times of tremendous persecution. He didn’t lead them out of their tribulations, but instead used their afflictions and even their deaths for His glory. He honored their faith just as much as those who conquered kingdoms—perhaps even more so.
No matter how compelling the world’s arguments appear, we must not allow ourselves to run ahead of the Lord and rely on the world’s wisdom rather than His. In the end, His answer will not disappoint us. Even though the wait may be distressingly long and painful, we can trust what He might accomplish through our time of waiting. Regardless of the outcome, He sees our devotion and will surely reward us for it.
God is ever so faithful.
3. Hold on to God’s Promises
The nightmare seemed vividly real. I dreamed of my life fifteen years in the future, and everything was the same. I was still alone, struggling, and unable to pay all my bills. It appeared as though my current difficult circumstances would continue, with no end in sight! “Is this dream foretelling my future?” I wondered.
The next morning, I determined to go for a long run later in the day and have a heart-to-heart talk with the Lord about my troubling dream. So, once I got back home from work, I did just that. As I started out, I asked Him what the dream signified. Was I really destined to endure turmoil for the indefinite future? Would I really be waiting for years without end?
As I was jogging, the Lord reminded me of a verse I had previously memorized and recited more times than I could count: “I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13, NIV).
As the Spirit brought these words to mind, joy bubbled up inside me. The nightmare was not true; I would see God’s goodness in the future despite my current circumstances.
For months, I had held tightly to this verse for encouragement. I’m not sure why I had forgotten it earlier that day, but as the Spirit again made me aware of this promise, I felt great relief. Despite the wait, which would continue for many years after that day, I knew I could count on His goodness. (And now I can say that, after experiencing so much grief, the Lord has poured His goodness into my life in ways that would have staggered my imagination twenty-five years ago.)
Thus, the third lesson we learn from Saul’s faulty thinking is this: We must hold tightly to God’s promises.
The Lord’s command for Saul to wait for Samuel contained a promise: When Samuel arrived on the seventh day, he would give the king guidance; the prophet would tell the king what to do in order for God to win the battle for Israel (1 Samuel 10:8). The Lord had a plan to deliver His people from the Philistines, but in his impatience, the king missed it.
Saul had also received another promise he could have relied upon that day. In the process of selecting Saul, the Lord had told Samuel the new king would “save my people from the hand of the Philistines” (1 Samuel 9:16). How could Saul have forgotten this promise? Didn’t he trust the Lord and His power to deliver him?
These two pledges from God should have strengthened Saul’s resolve as he awaited the prophet’s arrival on that fateful day. Yet he ignored both of the assurances the Lord had already given him.
Merely knowing about God’s promises is not enough; we must make them personal, cling tightly to them in times of despair, and find ways to repeatedly bring them to our attention. I’ve found it helpful to write key verses on sticky notes and place them where I will see them often. I had done this with Psalm 27:13 before the Holy Spirit refreshed my memory during my run that day.
There’s one more important consideration we must remember while we’re in the midst of painful experiences.
4. Trust God’s Person, Not “Religious" Behavior
For a long time, I wrestled with another aspect of the excuses Saul offered Samuel. Something else was amiss in his faulty attempt at worship that day, but at first, I couldn’t identify it. Then it occurred to me: The king was treating the Lord as a good-luck charm rather than as a living, personal being.
Saul’s excuses reveal that he trusted sacrifice itself for success rather than in the One to whom he was making the offering. Saul trusted a religious exercise rather than God to deliver Israel. He didn’t consider that victory rested solely with the very One he was disobeying.
Activities such as daily prayer, Bible study, and worship are essential for a close relationship with the Lord, no doubt about it. However, when tragedies and tribulations beset us, it’s God, the object of our worship and faith, who provides the strength and encouragement we need to get through them. He alone is able to deliver us from the perils that confront us. He, not our godly behavior, empowers and delivers us as we go through tough times.
When we wait for God rather than run ahead of Him to find our own solutions, we demonstrate that our hope rests solely in His character. We acknowledge that He dearly loves us and wants the best for us, even when we can’t see it at the time.
It’s never a matter of trading religious behavior for His predictable outcomes. That’s what a vending machine does; wouldn’t it be boring if God behaved like that? I think so!
The Lord is so much more than a coin-operated machine. Even when the way seems dark, we can fully trust the One who is “able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20). The ultimate blessing of waiting on God is often much better than we could ever expect, even if we don’t see what He had planned for us after this life, in Jesus’ Kingdom.
Today, I’m exceedingly grateful that the Lord didn’t give me the job I begged Him for during my runs so long ago (see the introduction to this chapter). He had a significantly better path in mind for me. Yes, God’s track for my future involved more waiting and much additional grief along the way, but the result turned out far better than if He had initially said “yes” to my selfish and shortsighted prayers.
His plan for me has far exceeded all I could have imagined or even asked the Lord for at that time. And I still reside on this side of eternity, where my ultimate hopes and joyous expectations rest. I can’t fathom the glory that awaits all of us who know Jesus as Savior.
Walking With God
King Saul helps us understand the offer of true life comes from a loving, personal God who pursues a close relationship with us. He often leads us through difficult circumstances and makes us wait—even when things get much worse, not better. In such cases, we must trust in His love for us, not in ourselves or our good behavior. It’s all about learning to remain in His goodness and steadfast love as we make our way through the mire here below.
The Lord has a unique plan for each of us. We all have different personalities, abilities, spiritual gifts, and experiences. God doesn’t apply cookie-cutter solutions to our dilemmas, but works in each life according to His distinct purposes. That’s why our focus must be on the Lord rather than our situation…or even on how God is working in the life of the person seated next to us at church.
Jesus also has personalized roles for us in His coming Kingdom when He rules over the nations of the world seated on the throne of David. Who knows how our varied experiences might fit into the future places He has for us?
Even if we don’t see the resolution to our suffering in the near term, we know a joyous “forever” awaits. God will not disappoint us; His never-ending blessings will be well worth the wait! That’s the perspective I lacked during the dark years when I doubted His amazing love for me.
Many of you know all about seemingly impossible circumstances. You may believe you’ve done all you can—and more. Still, your problems persist, with no solution in sight. You can’t imagine holding on much longer. I’ve been in that situation, and all too slowly I realized that sometimes all I could do is wait.
I am not advocating “do-nothing” approaches to problem-solving. I’m simply pointing out that there will always be times when we find ourselves in predicaments with only one way out: Wait for the Lord.
Even now, as we look forward to the Lord’s appearing to take us home, we see the dark clouds of the Tribulation approaching as wickedness, deception, and violence increase exponentially all around us.
“How much longer?” we ask.
I never thought we would see so much evil, corruption, and deceit occurring before the Rapture takes place. However, I know Jesus is coming soon, and He will take us home before the start of the seven-year Tribulation.
In the next chapter, we’ll see how Saul’s son Jonathan took a step of faith and sent the massive army of the Philistines on the run.
My book, Cancel This! What Today’s Church Can Learn from the Bad Guys of the Bible, is available on Amazon. Each chapter on a biblical character contains a study guide with a summary of its key lesson and 8-10 questions for review. Please consider purchasing it.