071: Crazy Saul

April 27, 2010
1 Samuel 28

I think this passage of the Bible is kind of weird. Saul was kind of a weird guy anyhow, but why on earth did he go to this witch? Not too smart. He was “frantic with fear” it says, and I was thinking about how that makes us do weird (and often very stupid things).

I know I’ve done some stupid things, motivated by fear. I’ve said things to people I shouldn’t have said, I’ve made rash and risky decisions I should have considered longer. Most importantly, I’ve not rested and trusted God – instead I tend to find myself staring at the ceiling in my room in the middle of the night, not sleeping (again!) with my brain in overdrive thinking about some situation.

Why do we seem to have such a propensity as humans to NOT live in the present? We wander down the alleys and halls of our past, reliving moments, reenacting moves, restating memories and motives, trying to clearly communicate ourselves to… what? Our figment projection of someone in the past? They don’t live in our past. So why do we?

Saul seemed to need to do this. He says, “I have to talk to a man who has died.” Why? I think because he was re-walking through his past, rather then recognizing his present. Clearly he had issues – he just doesn’t seem to ever have a true perspective of God and who He is, and what God expects of Him. Instead, he gets consumed with killing David, fighting the Philistines, and generally letting his kingly-ness go to his head, I guess.

I don’t want to make the mistakes that Saul made. I don’t want to be reliving my past; I don’t want to find myself wishing I could go back to talk to a dead person. Or just to talk to someone in my past that isn’t a part of my present.

Sometimes the fact that we only have one life just impresses itself upon me. I don’t want to waste this life! I don’t want to settle for anything less than excellence… I don’t want to settle for anything less than the best.

May I run the race without being hindered. May I keep my eyes on Jesus and my energy in the present.