The Real Saul, God's Regret

I mentioned in my last post that I watched a documentary last night about Ted Haggard, the former president of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of New Life Fellowship, who was asked to step down from his various positions of influence because of a sex and drug scandal involving a male escort.  I've been thinking more and more about that documentary - the hurt he must feel, the sense of abandonment he's experienced by both his friends and God - and as I approach this section of my study in Saul, I have to say that that documentary probably aided my interpretation.  By the end of this story in Saul's life, we have these ominous words: "And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel" (1 Sam. 15:35).

This whole study has been about our deepest insecurities.  Saul was insecure about his ability to be king.  When he was chosen to be king, he looked for every excuse not to be.  He even hid among the supplies to avoid it.  he couldn't believe it, despite the fact that God had told him that he was king and transformed him into a person who would and could be.  But here's the power of our insecurities: as our deepest lies and fears about ourselves begin to take root deep within our souls, we start to become the lies we tell ourselves.

We've seen it happen with Saul up to this point.  He had early success in his royal career, but soon his insecurities and fears led to some sloppy choices and silly mistakes, which only exposed him to question his ability to lead even more.  And by the time we reach chapter 15, Saul is a shell of the leader he was.  In this story, God gave Saul specific instructions in how he was supposed to attack the Amelekites.  He was supposed to completely destroy everything in the town.  It was like making oatmeal . . . hard to screw it up.  But Saul disobeyed God, sparing the life of the Amelekite king and some of the lovestock.

Saul's interaction with Samuel is priceless.  When Samuel arrived, Saul said, "The Lord bless you!  I have carried out the Lord's instructions" (1 Sam. 15:13).  Did Saul really believe he did what he was supposed to?  When Samuel called him on his mistake, Saul tried to make excuses, but it was too late.  Saul had messed up too many times.  So Samuel informed Saul that "The Lord has torn the kingdom from you today and has given it to one o your neighbors" (1 Sam. 15:28).  And then the dagger in the heart comes in v. 35: "Until the day Samuel died, he did not go to see Saul again, though Samuel mourned for him.  AND THE LORD REGRETTED THAT HE HAD MADE SAUL KING OVER ISRAEL."

Now, the problem wasn't that God had hired the wrong guy.  Saul had all of the tools he needed to succeed in life and to be a great king.  God was in his corner.  All he had to do was believe it and rely on it and trust Him.  But he could never grasp it.  And that's the power of insecurities.  They can eat you away from the inside until those very lies that gnaw on you become real life.  God made Saul king.  Saul could never believe it.  So God agreed and took it away.

It reminds me of a social experiment I heard about in college called the blue eye /brown eye exercise, administered by Jane Elliot.  In 1968, while she was a grade school teacher, she decided to try this experiment in an attempt to teach her kids about the power of racism.  She seperated her class into brown eyed children and ble eyed children, and then she told the class that brown eyed children were inherently superior to blue eyed children because the melanin that makes brown eyes brown was linked to intelligence.  So she gave brown eyed children the VIP treatment, praising them for their intelligence, giving them extra priveleges (second helpings of the mystery meat at lunch), extra recess time, better school fountains.  And wouldn't you know it . . . the blue-eyed children didn't like this turn of events very much.  At first they resisted.  But soon, they started accepting it and believing it.   The “inferior” classmates transformed into timid and subservient children, including those who had previously been dominant in the class. Their academic performance slumped, even with tasks that had been simple before.  The lie had become an insecurity, and the insecurity became the reality.

I wonder if that is part of what happened to Ted Haggard.  I wonder if he ever REALLY believed God wanted him to be pastor.  I wonder if he ever believed God thought he was worthy to have a family that loved him.  I wonder if his deepest lies told him he was worthless and so eventually he began to act worthless.  And I wonder if that was the point when God said, "Ted, I regret that I made you the leader that I did.  And I'm going to take that away now."  Ted never believed he was the leader God made him, and so God eventually agreed and took it away.  I think that can happen in every marriage, every family, every corporation or school.  And I wonder about all of my own silly insecurities I have let become a reality simply because I didn't have the courage to challenge them or the faith to give them to God.  I wonder about all of the missed opportunities I squandered like Saul because I bought the lies.  God's regret is really just my own regret that I haven't discovered yet.