We're nearing the end of this study of mine on Saul. For the past few months I've been taking a look at his story and trying to understand him more deeply as a character and a person by investigating the ways in which his insecurities affected his decisions and the tragedy that became of his life. Saul was chosen by God to be the king of Israel, the first king of Israel. But as with all insecurities, there was something inside Saul that made it difficult for him to accept and believe that he was who God said he was. Though on the outside it may appear that Saul's greatest weakness was pride, his true weakness was his obsession with that internal voice, which eventually led Saul to fulfill the very things about himself he feared. What we get with Saul is a case study in what can happen when we allow our insecurities to run rampant.
Here's a concept that I want to talk about today: When our insecurities become the dominant voice in our lives, they often lead us away from a dependency on God's love and toward cheap imitations.
But by this point in Saul's journey, his insecurities were king. He had no confidence in simply following his intuition, or relying on military instincts, or just offering a sacrifice and having faith that God would provide. The opportunities for all of that had already come and gone. His confidence had disintegrated. So Saul panicked: "Saul then said to his attendants, 'Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her'" (28:7). Now let me explain. A medium is a person who consults dead spirits and ghosts from beyond the grave and offers advise based on what those spirits say. They're like palm readers and fortune tellers. The problem is, consulting mediums are a big "no - no" in God's law (Lev. 19:31). Mediums were sort of the anti-prophets (Cf. Deut. 18:14-15). They were the cheap substitutions for simple faith. And this act of disobedience was later cited as a primary reason for his demise (1 Chron. 10:13)
Was the medium Saul's first choice? No. Saul tried consulting prophets and other more Biblical ways of seeking God's will, but that doesn't matter. Going to the medium was a result of panic. Saul was scared things would break down, so he jimmy-rigged a quick fix. This kind of panic is always the result of a person's insecurities taking over and controlling behavior. The problem with insecurities is that they often lead us, but they rarely lead us to God's love, or to faith, or to courage. They lead us to cheaper imitations of God. They lead us to the kind of god we can impulsively buy for an amazing price on a street corner, which looks alot like the original, but it's just a counterfeit god.
Here's an intersting story about me. But as a disclaimer, let me just say that I am definitely NOT a Casanova-type guy. I am the furthest thing from a chick-magnet. But there was a small window in my life several years ago when I was actually kind of a player. It lasted about 4 months my senior year of High School. I don't say that because I'm proud of it . . . I actually feel the opposite about the things I did during that time. But during that time- period for some unknown reason, I found myself juggling several girls that I was "sort of" involved with at once. All of those girls knew I was involved with the others, but I still lied, cheated, and disrespected each of them plenty. And a funny thing happened. During that time, I started getting a reputation at school of being a "player." It was weird. I'd never been a "player" before. In fact I hadn't even had a girlfriend my whole freshman, sophomore, or junior years. And I remember during the years I was "Nice Guy Dave" I had always suspected that nice guys finished last when it came to love and relationships, and the guys who were jerks always got the girl. And unfortunately, those 4 months proved my theory to be more correct than I ever wanted to know. I had more opportunities to use and treat girls like dirt than I could shake a stick at (so to speak). Eventually I settled back down to reality, and "Nice guy Dave" triumphed over "Evil Dave." But I was thinking about that era in my life this afternoon and wondering why things happened the way they did.
I think I understand why I behaved the way I did. Besides rampant 17 year old hormones, I had recently been dumped in a previous relationship and so I was looking to shed alittle rejection anxiety by being someone I wasn't. I was, alot like Saul, looking for a cheap substitution for love and acceptance. But ironically, In that same slice of time, I became a magnet for other girls who were also looking for that cheap imitation to love and acceptance, and relationships. I wasn't a good guy to be with. But for a girl who struggled with rejection, or insecurities about their own sense of self-worth, or loneliness, I was the perfect, cheap substitution they were looking for. I see it all the time now among both men and women I have pastored. There are some people who are continually drawn to bad relationships or bad behavior or poor choices because their insecurities are leading them. And we have to understand that insecurities NEVER bring you to God's love or faith or grace or forgiveness. They always lead us to the shabby, cheap substitutions that only look like the kind of love and life that God wants for us, but fail to live up to their billing. They bring us to counterfeit God. And counterfeit God always looks good on the outside, but he's hollow on the inside.
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