Read: 1 Samuel 8:1-9:27; John 6:22-42; Psalm 106:32-48; Proverbs 14:34-35
Samuel’s sons were just like Eli’s. They used their father’s reputation and ministry for their own gain. I don’t think it was that Eli and Samuel were such bad parents as much as Eli and Samuel had to plow the road so their sons could walk on it. Instead of them being grateful, they turned to entitlement. Every generation needs to have to fight for something. If they grow up in an era of ease then they tend to become bored, entitled and ungrateful. I think it is important that we dedicate our children to the Lord like Hannah. We also need to let them go through hard things without rescuing them. They have to learn to depend on the Lord. If they only depend on us, they will expect us to rescue them out of the things they get themselves into even when they are adults.
Back to the story…the people wanted a king. God had wanted to be their king, but since they had rejected God, God told Samuel to tell them He would give them a king. But, he told Samuel to tell them what a king would do to them. He told them all the personal things they would have to sacrifice for this king: their sons, daughters, land, money, food, etc. Once they realize how oppressive a king could be and they cry out to God, he said he would not answer them.
They still wanted a king so he could lead them into battle and fight their battles for them. All they could think about was how they would look to other nations with a king and what he would do for them. They never counted the cost.
God gave them a king named Saul which means “people’s choice”. He looked like a king: tall, strong and handsome. He had one big fault: he cared what people thought. He had insecurities in who he was and where he came from. He couldn’t understand that through God he could do anything.
In John, we see the crowd who Jesus had miraculously fed looking for Jesus. They knew he didn’t get in the boat with the disciples but somehow, he was on the other side of the lake. They took boats over to the other side and asked Jesus how he got there. Instead of telling them that he walked across the water, he told them that their hearts were all wrong. They weren’t looking for him because he had done the impossible, but because he had fed them. He told them that they needed to hunger for spiritual things more than natural.
Next, they wanted Jesus to work a miraculous sign like Moses did when he rained manna from heaven. Jesus corrected them and said that Moses didn’t give that manna but God did. What happened in Moses’ day was a picture of their day. Jesus was the true manna sent from heaven to sustain them. They couldn’t understand because they couldn’t figure it out with their own reasoning. Man’s reasoning fights the spirit of God. God is past finding out; it takes total faith to believe.
Lord, help us to believe the impossible even if it messes with our understanding.
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