Publicly - 1st Samuel 10

Samuel told Saul to go home and that he would encounter 3 specific signs. It’s not said explicitly but it is implied that these signs were meant to confirm for Saul that Samuel was correct and that God had chosen him to be the new king of Israel. I saw an IG video a couple of weeks ago talking about confirmations and that God will always send confirmations to us because He’s not a God of confusion. And I think the example they used was a random stranger coming up to them and saying something about what God wanted them to do that was pretty specific, so I think the context that they were talking about was that other people will confirm for you what God is telling you to do. While I do think that that is possible, I don’t necessarily think that that’s true, but it was an interesting concept to think about. But maybe it is true, we just need to temper our expectations about what constitutes a confirmation. I think if we are looking for something specific or obvious or showy, then we’ll probably be disappointed. But like Moroni says, “he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.” I don’t know why but I always thought that that verse included a phrase such as “a burning in your bosom” or something like that but it doesn’t, so our real confirmation according to that verse is just that it will “manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.” So whatever ways that the Holy Ghost can work, those are the ways that our confirmations can be manifest. But again, it will always still need to be by faith because rarely will God do something that removes all doubt and gives us pure, undisputable knowledge because that would mean we didn’t need faith anymore. It’s like Alma says, even if we have knowledge in one thing, that doesn’t remove our faith in other things. Faith will always be the main predominant feature in our relationship with God, not knowledge, not complete understanding, usually. That’s my opinion anyway, and it seems to be the lesson that I’ve been learning recently.

All three signs happened that same day, and I think it’s interesting that the last sign is that Saul meets with some prophets and they all prophecy together. I thought that that was an interesting and unique sign for Saul and wondered why God would pick that one specifically. Maybe it’s because Saul is not a religious leader right now, maybe he thinks that he’s not qualified to be a religious leader or to act in a religious capacity at this point and so God needed to show him that he could do it, with God’s help. I know whenever I write or say or think something profound that I know didn’t come from my brain, it is a mind shift, where I’m like, wow that did not come from me, and I see that I have the capacity for things beyond my abilities if God puts it there. It’s a very interesting feeling. When Saul was prophesying, the people he knew were very surprised because this was beyond the capabilities of the man they knew, and maybe this was also for them, so that they wouldn’t reject it once they heard it was Saul who was called to be king. We. Never know all the reasons why God does something, even if we think we know some of the reasons, a lot of times the reasons serve purposes that he couldn’t even imagine possible.

Once Saul gets home, his uncle meets him and tells him that the donkeys have been found but that Saul’s dad was worried about him, and asks him where he’s been this whole time. Interestingly, Saul tells his uncle and presumably father as well, that he was looking for the donkeys and had an encounter with Samuel. They were intrigued and asked what Samuel said, and Saul just said “He told us plainly that the asses were found.” Kind of left out a big part there.

Samuel calls all the people to Mizpeh, and tells them “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all kingdoms, and of them that oppressed you: and ye have this day rejected your God, who himself saved you out of all your adversities and your tribulations; and ye have said unto him, Nay, but set a king over us.” Another translation says something to the effect of “I did all these things for you but now you want a king. Do you think he will be able to do more for you than I have?” That was a pretty powerful statement because really, that’s exactly what it comes down to. God fed them manna from heaven, water from rocks, killed hundreds of thousands of their enemies, has done everything for them, but that wasn’t good enough. It’s like when my kids were little and I came home from work and the house would be a mess and I would tell my kids that coming home to a messy house was like saying, “mom, you don’t work hard enough, you need to clean the house too.” After some distance, I realize that that might not have been the most effective parenting solution, but it felt so disrespectful and I’m sure that’s exactly what this was for God as well.

But fine, if they want a king, then God will give them a king. There’s sort a reality TV show kind of drama reveal here because Samuel does this big thing where the tribe of Benjamin is called up, then all the families are paraded in front of him until they get to Saul’s family, but then Saul is not there. I don’t know if this is him just really being like, this is too much, I don’t want to do this, and that’s fair because he probably has a pretty good life and being a king is a lot more work than he wants to engage in, perhaps. They pray and the Lord tells them, “Behold, he hath hid himself among the stuff.” I’m not exactly sure what that means but, they go get him and Samuel brings him up and he’s handsome and really tall and all the people shout “God save the king.” And Samuel writes it all down and put the book “before the Lord” and sends all the people away and Saul goes home too, but now he has “a band of men, whose hearts God had touched.”

HOWEVER, there’s a twist because not all the tribes are happy about this new king. It’s possible that not all the tribes wanted a king, some might have been loyal to God, but my guess is that it was mostly because the king wasn’t chosen from their tribes. These dissenters are called “children of Belial” which means the children of Ba’al, or are considered worthless men, troublemakers, idolators, etc. Their answer to the new king is, “How shall this man save us?’ And they despised him, and brought him no presents.” This is a fair question, and one that was exactly God’s point, how could Saul save Israel more than God could or did? The only difference is that God required them to be obedient to His laws for victory, and with Saul the people could take their chances at victory while being disobedient. God said that they would have no victory when they were wicked, so peace and prosperity hinged on their obedience. But with Saul, they could take their chances on being prosperous and winning while living life however they wanted. They should have known that just because they had a human king, that didn’t negate their obligation for obedience, and God would still hold them accountable, but they wanted to try their own way, and God let them after they were so insisted so much. Much like Joseph Smith and the lost manuscript pages, God let him try it his own way after not taking no for an answer. It’s kind of ominous looking at our own lives, like how often, and in what ways, do I insist on doing things my way only to be crushed out of that desire or by being given it to realize that it wasn’t what I was hoping for.