God Without Wrapping Paper

I remember hearing a preacher talk once about meeting David Wilkerson, a well-known evangelist who wrote The Cross and the Switchblade and who was responsible for starting the Teen Challenge program in New York City. 

The preacher reminisced about his one meeting with David Wilkerson as he gave this account (my summary, not a direct quote): "You know how David Wilkerson was. You sort of... check yourself over, confess any sins, make sure you're right with God before you go meet him, you know? He didn't have time for the wrapping paper. You come with what you got. He was that kind of man of God."

This morning, I continued on in my very slow read-through of 1 Samuel, where I am now in chapter 9. Here's where we meet King Saul for the first time, but before he became king. "There was a Benjamite, a man of standing, whose name was Kish, son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Becorath, the son of Aphiah of Benjamin. He had a son named Saul, an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites -- a head taller than any of the others" (1 Samuel 9:1-2).

In other words, if you were to meet Saul, you might think... "Maybe I should do a mirror check. Make sure I look all right. No bedhead. No popcorn kernels stuck between my teeth. Do an underarm deodorant check." 

Look at all those adjectives: Saul... was impressive. He was young. He was without equal. He was a head taller than anybody else.

And Saul had some lost donkeys. Or, at least, his father had some lost donkeys. So impressive, young, without equal, tall Saul heads out with a servant to go look for his dad's donkeys. They look and look and look, but they don't find them, and so they're on the verge of giving up.

They get into this place called Zuph (how would you like to be from a place called "Zuph"?), and Saul tells the servant: "You know what? Let's just go home. My dad's going to stop worrying about the donkeys and he's going to start worrying about us."

But the servant knows something. He knows there's a man of God who lives in this town. So he tells Saul: "Look, in this town, there is a man of God; he is highly respected, and everything he says comes true" (1 Samuel 9:6). The servant is talking about the prophet Samuel, whom we've followed in my previous blog posts, the same one who is "an attested prophet of the Lord in Israel" and for whom the Lord "did not let any of his words fall to the ground."

Look at the adjectives for Samuel: He was highly respected. Everything he said came true. He was attested. His words did not fall to the ground.

In other words, you meet Samuel, and you think: "Maybe I should do a soul check. Not necessarily because of what this guy knows, but because of WHO this guy knows."

The rest of the chapter plays out. Saul agrees to his servant's suggestion to go meet the prophet of God. "They went up to the town, and as they were entering it, there was Samuel, coming toward them on his way up to the high place" (1 Samuel 9:14).

And then there's a perspective shift in the narrative. Suddenly, we're no longer seeing through Saul's eyes. Now we're seeing through Samuel's. And we find out something very interesting as a result. "Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed this to Samuel: 'About this time tomorrow I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin. Anoint him leader over my people Israel; he will deliver My people from the hand of the Philistines. I have looked upon My people, for their cry has reached Me'" (1 Samuel 9:15-16).

Now we know: God's planning something. This is no chance meeting. This is a divine encounter, set up and orchestrated by the Lord Himself. Samuel is expecting Saul, because the Lord has told him to expect Saul. Samuel intentionally asks Saul to eat with him, and he even tells the cook to "Bring the piece of meat I gave you, the one I told you to lay aside." For Saul. Samuel had saved some food for Saul, whom the Lord had told him was coming.

This chapter speaks so strongly to me because of one simple reason: 

God is on His throne.

God, in fact, has never left His throne. He has never abdicated His throne to us (praise Him for that!). He has never stepped aside to allow us lordship over creation and all its affairs. He has never stopped everything, called me up, and said, "Hey, why don't you try this for a while?"

Can you just imagine the complete disaster that would happen if any person, even the wisest among us, would have the ruling of the universe, even for a short time? Aren't you so thankful that He sits on His throne and rules with sovereignty and total power?

Psalm 11:4 says: "The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord is on His heavenly throne. He observes the sons of men; His eyes examine them."

I love Job 38 through the end of the book, really, but Job 38:4-13 is a fantastic reminder of how big God is and how unworthy we are. God says: "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell Me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or Who laid its cornerstone -- while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt'? Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?" 

God sees all, God knows all, and it didn't matter that the donkeys were lost and that Saul and his servant spent days looking for them, the Lord wanted him to meet with Samuel so Samuel could anoint him king, so the Lord made it happen. It didn't matter that Samuel didn't know that Saul was impressive, young, without equal, and a head taller than anyone else. He was simply the one the Lord had picked to be the first king of Israel.

Psalm 127:1 says: "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain." 

Y'all, listen, we as a society are prone to trust our institutions. Of government. Of health. Of education. Of just about anything we can think of to add to our security blanket. And there's good reasons for that, because as it says in Daniel 2:21: "He (God) changes times and seasons; He sets up kings and deposes them." We've got systems of security in place. But here's the thing: God is sovereign over all of them.

We can trust His sovereignty and the fact that when He moves His hand to accomplish His will... there's not a blessed thing we can do to stop Him (not that we would want to, right?). But how often do we panic anyway? 

Waaaait! Lord, it's not supposed to be this way! Have you ever found yourself disagreeing with God over a point? Or, worse, telling yourself that God has changed His point of view to match yours? Or, even worse, told yourself that God never really said that in the first place, that it was all your imagination, and that you are enlightened now?

Fact of the matter is this: God is God. And you and I? We're not. So when He says: "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10), He really means it. When He says: "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still..." (Exodus 14:14), again... He means it.

Saul had to do a soul check when he met Samuel, brush up his heart a little bit, because of Who Samuel knew. He was undergoing inspection. He had to put aside his mission (pursuing donkeys) and be confronted with his true mission (being king). Why? Because God decided it. Not because of how impressive he was, or how young he was, or how without equal he was, or how tall he was.

God decided it because God decided it. And that was that. No if's, and's, or but's.

Can we accept God's plan without "if's, and's, or but's"? Without wrapping paper, bows, and "improvements"? Can we just let God... be God?

Steven Curtis Chapman sings a song called: "God is God and I Am Not." Check it out here. And then... let God. Be still. Let go. And let God.