1 Samuel 12:1-13:22
John 7:1-30
Psalm 108:1-13
Proverbs 15:4
Many who know me know that I season my impatience with the misguided belief I know better, that I leaven my desire for instant gratification with misplaced good intentions. And so, rather than wait upon the Lord, I convince myself I have the knowledge needed to make the decision I think is urgently required...often to sad, avoidable results, to outcomes other than those I'd hoped to achieve.
The Israelites thought they knew better as well - rather than listen to the man of God in Samuel, they demanded a king...and the king they got immediately demonstrated his inadequacy by immediately disobeying God's first command - "wait". Saul thought he knew better, thought the situation - his men beginning to scatter in fear the face of the Philistine threat - required immediate action. And his intentions were good - he wasn't going out to face the enemy on his own, he was seeking God's help with a burnt offering.
The thing is, God wasn't asking for sacrifice, He was asking for obedience. And Saul, despite his good intentions, demonstrated just how much of a stranger God was to him.
In the New Testament reading, we see something completely different. Jesus knows His Father well, and so He knows that it is not yet time for Him to reveal Himself. He knows God well enough, is in a close enough relationship with His Father that He knows when to wait and when to act. And so he refuses to go to the festival, "because my time has not yet fully come". And He was able to preach in the temple despite the threat to Him because although "[the people of Jerusalem] tried to seize Him///no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come."
I would like to get to know God so well as to be able to wait confidently upon Him, however urgently I might feel compelled to act, however good my intentions might seem. For those like myself who have been such good students of earthly thinking, it is impossible. Thankfully, nothing is impossible with God.
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