Being Careful What You Wish For

 14 Now the Spirit of the LORD had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD tormented him. 15 Saul’s attendants said to him, “See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better.” 17 So Saul said to his attendants, “Find someone who plays well and bring him to me.” 18 One of the servants answered, “I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the LORD is with him.” 19 Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.” 20 So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them with his son David to Saul. 21 David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul liked him very much, and David became one of his armor-bearers. 22 Then Saul sent word to Jesse, saying, “Allow David to remain in my service, for I am pleased with him.” 23 Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.

1 Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Sokoh in Judah. They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim, between Sokoh and Azekah. 2 Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines. 3The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them. 4 A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span. 5 He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels; 6 on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. 7 His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him. 8 Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. 9 If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.” 10 Then the Philistine said, “This day I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.” 11 On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

–1 Samuel 16.14-17.11 (NIV)

Last week we looked at what happens when we attempt to take matters into our own hands rather than obey what we know to be God’s will for us. The results usually aren’t very pretty. Today’s story reflects a continuation of that theme. You recall that Israel demanded a king to lead them so that they could be like the rest of the nations around them. Never mind that they were God’s called-out (holy) people who were supposed to be agents of God’s healing redemption. No, they were not particularly interested in their call, just the benefits they would derive from being God’s people. But as we saw, in demanding a king, Israel in effect rejected God’s rightful kingship over them.

Careful what you wish for. You may just get it.

We see this sadly represented in today’s account. Saul had willfully rejected God’s command to him on at least two separate occasions and the second time this happened was apparently the last straw. God took his Holy Spirit from Saul and put it on David, God’s chosen successor to Saul. In place of God’s Spirit, God sent an evil spirit to afflict Saul. This sounds shocking to our modern ears. How could God do such a thing? But it is not hard to guess. Since Saul decided to make himself king over God, God simply gave Saul what he wanted by making it manifest to others that God had rejected Saul’s kingship. Much as we do not like to admit it, there are real and often dire consequences to our rebellion against God.

Yet notice carefully the following chain of events in the first part of this story. After having Samuel anoint David as Saul’s successor, God uses the evil spirit he sent against Saul as a vehicle to introduce David, the future king, into Saul’s court. God did this through music and it should not escape our attention that even when he afflicted Saul, God used Saul’s successor to bring some temporary healing to that affliction. There it is. Another sign of God’s great faithfulness and grace, even in the face of ongoing human rebellion against God.

But the sad story of the consequences of our stubborn rebellion doesn’t end here. We see it come to a head in the story of Goliath. Israel had wanted a king like the other nations and God had given Israel what it wanted. Now that Israel had a king just like the other nations, it was confronted with its own helplessness in dealing with its enemies. When confronted by the giant Goliath, Saul and his men became dismayed and terrified. They knew they had nothing in their repertoire to defeat this formidable enemy who taunted both them and their God.

Thankfully, however, this is not the end of the story because God does not give up on his wayward people. If you continue reading this story, you will see that God gives his people a new king, David, the man after God’s own heart. David will not be terrified of Goliath the way Saul and his men were because David had faith in God’s power to deliver on his word. He trusted God and went on to slay the giant, thus putting human pride and the power of God in their respective rightful places.

And this is what we must take from stories like this. They are part of the overall biblical narrative of how God is putting his world to right, about how God can and does use deeply flawed individuals to help him in his great task. Yes, there is punishment for willful rebellion, but it is always done out of love. God does not want us to choose death. He wants us to choose life and we do that by acknowledging God is God and we are not. We therefore decide to obey him so that he can use us to bring healing to others around us who desperately need to be exposed to God’s great love for us in Christ.

We’ll continue to get things wrong because we are deeply flawed. But the message from today’s story, even as shocking as it might ostensibly be, is that God is faithful and God is in control of things. Unlike the deeply flawed characters in today’s story, we can have hope that God can and will use us to help him accomplish his redemptive purposes if we will simply trust and obey God. It won’t be easy and we will have to sometimes face terrifying enemies. And even though we are as deeply flawed as Saul and his men were, we have seen God’s great love for us poured out on the cross and that gives us real hope. When we have that hope, we also have confidence that we have God’s Spirit working in us because there is work to be done right here and now on God’s behalf.

Let us therefore learn how not to respond to God by learning from Saul’s mistakes and willfulness. God is always faithful but God also loves us enough to go away from us if that is what we want because real love never forces itself on the beloved. Think deeply on these things the next time you are tempted to ask God to make you just like the rest of the folks around you. Consider carefully your real abilities to handle all that life can throw at you, both good and bad, and then choose to say yes to God’s gracious invitation to you in Christ to live life and live it abundantly in joyful and obedient service to God and others. When you do that, you’ll never have to worry about having the wrong kind of spirit in you.