Joel M Bradshaw

17Now Samuel called the people together to the LORD at Mizpah. 18And he said to the people of Israel, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.’19But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses, and you have said to him, ‘Set a king over us.’ Now therefore present yourselves before the LORD by your tribes and by your thousands.”–1 Samuel 10

Israel’s problem is the root issue for today. Everyone remembers the famous rock band that sung about not getting satisfaction no matter how hard he tried. Well Israel didn’t have to try. God simply provided. But God’s divine leadership wasn’t enough for them. They weren’t satisfied until they could have a king.

God proclaimed his faithfulness to them. He had saved them from slavery and from every enemy. He provided for all their needs. And it wasn’t enough for them. They weren’t satisfied with that arrangement. It would be one thing if God’s provision was incomplete or lacking, but that was not the case. Israel’s problem is that they wanted more, they wanted the different, they wanted the new, they weren’t satisfied unless they had the other.

This attitude creeps into life and breeds fantasies about what you don’t have. A husband begins to ponder a different wife who respects him. A wife ponders a husband who listens to her. The ones without children long for children. Others worn out by their kids long for the days when they could sleep in! The unemployed isn’t satisfied in his heart until he has a job. The list goes on.

What we have to watch out for is what is going on deep in our hearts. We can long for good things and in faith ask God to provide. What we cannot do is to grow bitter and jealous of others. We should be satisfied both in God and how he has led us and provided for us. God is enough. I can be satisfied in him and thankful for how he leads me. I can make my requests known to God. I can cast all my anxieties upon God. But I am NOT to long for another life that God hasn’t brought me. I am not to seek in my heart for another path away from God. See what a heart struggle this can be?–JMB