Dave and I often laugh after watching commercials for all sorts of drugs that will "revolutionize" your body or health, etc. We laugh because of the long list of side effects that are always mentioned at the end, with the last one usually being "death." After hearing all the things that "could" or "might" go wrong if you take the medicine, it seems a bit ridiculous to us that you actually would choose this medicine! Is anything you're going through worse than death? If the answer is "yes," then by all means, take the medicine.
Today I was reading 1 Samuel chapters 8-10. In them, the Israelites really want Samuel, a highly respected leader and prophet in Israel, to tell them who would be a good king. They have never had a king before, but they want to be like all the other nations, and have a king. Samuel consults God with this information, and God gives him a list of side effects that the nation will endure if they decide to have a king rule over them instead of the Lord their God. Samuel then takes this information back to Israel. He tells them the king will put their sons into his army, take a tenth of everything they own and will also take their best lands and give them to his officials, make their daughters work for him, make them farm his land, and, in general, make them his slaves. The nation basically says, "Great--give us a king." Really?!?
And then I look at my life. I often tell God what I want, and he tells me "no" because it's not the best thing for me--it will not turn out well. But I tell him I want it anyway. He relents, because he will let me make my own decisions, and lo and behold, things don't go well. And then I get it. I get why he asks us to read the Bible--to know it through and through. He gives us these histories of mistakes that have been made before, so that we might see ourselves in it, and stop copying their mistakes! God is just like our own parents. Sure, we can learn the hard way, but who wants to see their children hurt themselves over and over again? He loves us, and wants us to learn from previous mistakes, and turn to him before we get hurt. God will never tell us, like our often nagging siblings when we were younger, "I told you so!" He will pick us up, and dust us off, and put a bandaid on our wounds, even when we disregard his perfect will for our lives. He wants the best for us, and unlike our earthly parents, who do their best but can't see the future, he knows and sees what that is and how it will work. I pray that I will trust God more daily; that I will seek him more daily. Because, who doesn't want to live the best life that is out there for them?
