Fearful Imagination

I have heard people say kids have a great imagination, and I would agree.  Kids can be amazingly imaginative, creative and perceptive from a young age.  I would also say that adults also have a great imagination--except it isn't always great.  A child imagines a red-eyed monster is in their closet, and an adult can worry if other people are judging them or what will happen in the future.  How many times, as an adult, has your wandering mind, twinged with fears, concocted great horrors that never remotely came to pass?  While there are many fearsome things in this world, most of our fears and worries live rent-free in the realm of our imagination.  We can know our fears are irrational, but we can choose to submit to them anyhow--as if God is powerless to help, protect or change us.

This struck me as I considered Saul of Israel, a man of the tribe of Benjamin God chose and anointed to be king over His people.  1 Samuel 13 describes a key turning point in the life of Saul two years into his reign.  Initially Saul was a man marked by great humility who was faith to serve his father, showed respect to Samuel the prophet, and preferred to avoid the limelight.  The passage spoke of Saul going to Gilgal in a valley to wait for 7 days in accordance to Samuel's directive, and over the course of a week the children of Israel began to scatter from him.  The men of Israel were skittish and flighty over the thousands of chariots, horsemen and fighting Philistines who gathered against them.  Saul was among the fearful men of Israel:  afraid of the Philistines at Michmash (though over 6kms away), fearful of being abandoned by his men, and worried that Samuel was not coming.  So on the 7th day, Saul foolishly decided to offer a burnt offering and a peace offering to God to rally his troops and ease his mind.

After Saul completed the burnt offering, Samuel arrived and confronted him for his unlawful sacrifice.  1 Samuel 13:11-13 reads, "And Samuel said, "What have you done?" And Saul said, "When I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered together at Michmash, ¹² then I said, 'The Philistines will now come down on me at Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to the LORD.' Therefore I felt compelled, and offered a burnt offering." ¹³ And Samuel said to Saul, "You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the LORD your God, which He commanded you. For now the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever."  Instead of looking to the LORD in faith, Saul looked to his scattered people, that Samuel was not present, and the Philistines gathered at Michmash.  In his mind he had no choice but to offer the sacrifices because his circumstances demanded it.  Samuel exposed Saul's folly in disobeying God, and his action revealed a heart that did not trust, obey or rely upon God.

As we read on, what Saul feared never came to pass:  the Philistines did not attack him in Gilgal despite his military vulnerability and lack of weaponry.  The LORD protected him and his people in Gilgal even though they did not trust or obey God to wait according to the word of the LORD.  Saul's vivid, fearful imagination ran rampant without faith in God.  Only 600 men remained with Saul at that point, and only Saul and Jonathan were armed with swords.  But it seems Saul forgot how God defeated the Midianites by the sword of the LORD and of Gideon when he and his 300 men carried no swords--they only wielded a torch in one hand and a trumpet in the other!  Saul's impatient, foolish decision to offer sacrifice was spurred on by fear of man and not the fear of God which is marked by humility and obedience.  Saul allowed fear to run like squealing, feral pigs in his imagination, and we can repeat the same mistake.  It is good to live our lives in the real world ordered by the almighty God who created all things, submitting to and waiting for Him rather than fearing imaginary outcomes.  The greatest foes Saul faced was his own unbelief, pride and his fearful imagination, and Saul lost to them all big time even when God was faithful to protect him.