“When Samuel reached him, Saul said, “The LORD bless you! I have carried out the LORD’s instructions.” But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?”
–1 Samuel 15:13-14

Saul was the man. The king of Israel. But Saul had a Saul problem, just like you and I have a me problem. Not me as in me, but me as in you. Without God at the center, we’re all our own worst enemies. Saul was at the center of Saul. He was given an instruction to obliterate the Amalekites, to completely wipe out everything on two and four legs and leave nothing breathing. But something else rang in Saul’s ears: “To the victor go the spoils.” He saw an opportunity to increase his wealth by keeping the best of the animals to add to his own, and also a chance to make a political play by keeping the Amalekite king alive–something he could later leverage if ever needed for his royal gain. So he took them: the opportunity, the agenda and God’s law into his own hands, molding to whatever suited Saul first and God second.

Big no-no there. And Samuel, one of God’s prophets, called him out on it. Big time. In front of all his soldiers, all his royal subjects. Saul tried to play it off. But Samuel wasn’t playing. Neither was God.

Ever been in Saul’s shoes? Trust me, we all have. And it’s a baaaaaad thing when our sheep start bleating our disobedience. Here’s where our table landed with these questions:

1. What stands out to you from these verses?
For all of us it was the lie, the front that Saul tried to put up. Also the fact of the prideful ownership he showed with the “I have” done God’s will—it was meant as a cover up, but even if it was genuine, it was a boastful statement. Also how there are consequences to everything we do, and no matter how hard we try to cover up the wrong things, they always come back to bite us in the rear.

2. Is there such a thing as “partial” obedience?
Only if there’s such a thing as partially killing someone, telling a partial lie, paying partial taxes, being partially drunk or partially pregnant. The answer would be a resounding “NO.” Though one guy mentioned that vacuuming the family room for his wife who asked him to clean the house while she was gone was considered partial obedience.

3. Have you ever hidden something from someone you loved? Explain.
You mean like deleting files in your computer history folder? Or hiding receipts from the country club or your past hunting/fishing trip? No, of course not. Never. Actually, what we discussed here was when we exposed light to things done in secret, how that seemed to lessen the hold whatever it was had on us. Light exposes everything, and darkness can’t overcome it.

4. What is a “partitioned life”? Do you partition some areas of your life to yourself? Why?
A partitioned life is one where we live for ourselves. We create boxes like “provision” or “hanging with the guys” or “Saturday night” or “it’s just business.” And we do this to rationalize and justify our actions, to make us feel better, and because we’re putting oursevles at the center of our universe, not God. We also do this because we’re idiots. If only we had some kind of bat signal that flashed in the sky as a warning when we’re partioning—maybe more of a baaaaa signal instead. I know that’s bad, and the second time I’ve used it in this post already. No more, I promise. There’s enough bleating sheep going on as it is.

Until next week, don’t do what Saul did, and we’ll tackle the next thing we guys do but probably shouldn’t.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 9:31 pm and is filed under Chew on This, Five Things, table talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.