1 Samuel 8:6-9 -- On Desires and Consequences

"But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord.
And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.
According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee.
Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them."

1 Samuel 8:6-9


In these verses Samuel the prophet is talking to God about the people wanting a king, because he knows that that is going to be worse for the people than having the Lord as their ruler, but they kept asking for it.  God tells him basically, give them what they want, but tell them the consequences first so that they are choosing with all the information.

So he does, and they still want a king, and they get one... and the consequences they were warned of happen.  ... And we look at this and we might think... wow, how did they just dismiss the warnings like that when the prophet told them specifically what would happen?

And yet, don't we do similarly in our own lives?  We often know exactly what is going to happen and what we are getting wrong in our lives, but we still want what we want, and keep running toward it, like we didn't know there was a brick wall there... except we did because God warned us.

Today, maybe something to try is stopping for a minute and listening to God rather than going insanely after what we've become fixated on.  Like with Samuel's people, acting against God's advice is not going to turn out well.  We *know* this.  So let's try putting on the brakes and finding a way out of our headlong rush into trouble and pain.  Let's choose God as our guide rather than getting ourselves lost.