Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Rama; and they said to him, “Behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations.”
When I was around ten years old, I accidentally hit my daddy in the head with a baseball. We were throwing the ball in the front yard, and at least one of us wasn’t paying attention.
The circumstances surrounding the incident are blurry in my mind. Did someone call him right as I was about to throw? Did something in the garden catch his eye? I don’t know, but somehow, his attention was diverted right at the moment that I threw the ball.
Now, there has never been a chance that I would become a successful pitcher. In fact, there’s a reason I never played softball. I just don’t have much upper-body strength for throwing. But…when I do choose to throw something, I generally hit my target.
So while my throw wasn’t exactly a fastball, it did kerplunk into the side of my daddy’s head.
As you might expect, he was a bit unhappy about it. He wasn’t mad at me, but as a child, it sure felt that way. The game ended pretty quickly, and I was so upset that I’d hurt my daddy.
When Israel Rejected God as King
I feel something similar when I read 1 Samuel 8. Samuel isn’t a young spring chicken anymore, so he’s appointed his two sons to help him judge Israel, but they’re more interested in what they can gain from the gig than living and serving in a way that honors God.
The people eventually get tired of their corruption and go to Samuel to demand a king. While it is quite sad to read about how God’s people rejected Him as their ruler, the most heartbreaking part of the chapter is what God says to Samuel in response.
The Heartbreak Behind God’s Response to Samuel
In verses 7-8, God responds to Samuel and says, “Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them. Like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them up from Egypt, even to this day–in that they have forsaken Me and served other gods–so they are doing to you also.”
Can you hear the heartbreak in that response? The people may be using the corruption of Samuel’s sons as a ruse to demand a king, but God knows exactly what’s up–they just don’t want Him as their king anymore. I can’t imagine how much that must have hurt. Although I’m betting it hurt quite a bit more than a baseball to the head.
How We Still Dethrone God Today
When I think about how much this rejection must have hurt God, I’m suddenly ten-year-old me again, upset because I hurt my Father. Because here’s the reality. We still do this.
We’re not going around demanding that pastors find us a king to rule over us, but we do dethrone our Heavenly Father in favor of being our own ruler. We do this when we ignore what the Holy Spirit is teaching us or leading us to do. We do this when we decide that we’re not going to live out what we’re told in a piece of Scripture because it doesn’t line up with current popular beliefs. We can even be guilty of this when we give in to worry rather than trusting that God will fight for us.
Who Is on the Throne of Your Life?
It’s so easy to fall into those traps, so let’s be on the lookout. Keeping watch in our hearts for the seeds of these attitudes and taking them captive before they can lead us astray. Because the choice we face is between rejecting God and hurting Him and living in a way that blesses Him by letting Him and others know that we want Him on the throne of our lives.
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