"Unanswered Prayers"
"Do everything they say to you," the Lord replied, "for it is me they are rejecting, not you. They don't want me to be their king any longer. (1 Samuel 8:7 NLT)
I remember listening to the Garth Brooks song, "Unanswered Prayers" when I was a kid. He talks about thanking God for not answering all of his prayers. He thanks God that God knows better than he does. (He also calls God "the man upstairs" which is not cool but that's another post).
Have you ever asked God for something, not gotten it, & been thankful that it actually didn't work out? I often wonder how many of our prayers & requests God actually saves us from?
Here the Israelites ask for a king & God warns them about what this would mean. A king would exploit the people & take from them whatever he wants. They should have hoped God would not answer their prayer! But he did. He gave the people what they wanted even though it was to their detriment. Sometimes we ask God for things & he allows us to have them even if they are not best for us. I wonder if this is God's grace or discipline? I'm leaning toward discipline. This should teach us to be careful what we wish for (or pray for) because we just might get it!
Also, we see that the people want a king because they want what the other nations have. In this way, God says they are not rejecting Samuel's leadership but God's. See, God was to be their King. He was to rule his people. God didn't need a man to rule them, he was able to rule them just fine on his own.
When we start to imitate the world we lose perspective on what we actually need from God. We don't need what our culture preaches we need. We don't need what this world values. We don't need it's systems & philosophies. We need God. His reign & rule in our lives is absolutely crucial. This type of life is very counter-cultural & worth it in the end! We should be thanking God for not always giving us what we want!
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