We have been studying King Saul this past week and found so many rich lessons to be learned through his life. I thought I would share some of the things we discussed as we read through different passages in 1 Samuel.

-God wants us to be governed internally with Him as our King instead of desiring to be externally governed by an earthly king. In 1 Sam. chapter 8 God gave great warning to His people of the consequences that would come from having an earthly king, but they did not heed His warning because they wanted to be like everyone else.

-Even the humblest of men can become prideful when given positions of authority (1 Sam 9:21, 15:17) We talked about how power can corrupt and about how our form of government at its foundings was set up to safeguard against too much power being given to any individual for this reason.

-Saul first disobeyed God because he lacked an understanding of how big his God is.  God had given him instructions fully knowing the circumstances that would take place yet Saul believed that somehow he knew better than God and did things the way that seemed right to him.(Prov. 21:2)

-And lastly Saul disobeyed God' instruction a second time because he wanted to make a sacrifice.  I find these words of Samuel when he confronts Saul here to be so very important to teach to our children.

 "Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice" 1 Samuel 15:22 

How often my children think that they don't need to obey me if they are doing some other "good" thing. We went through a disobedience study last year and this verse took on a whole new meaning to me. I had never thought of its application to my children (or myself for that matter!) We use For Instructions in Righteousness to do character studies like this one and I loved how the author, Pam Forster, explained this verse:

"We see this over and over in our children. They want to pick flowers for Mommy instead of coming and getting ready for bed as they have been told to do. They want to help Bethany with her bottle instead of washing hands and coming to the table. Even though they are performing some other helpful task, if they are not obeying our directions, they are disciplined for disobedience, and reminded of this verse, and what happened to Saul when he chose to sacrifice rather than obey."