The theme so far has been that the
Lord uses anyone He pleases, even ordinary people. If He has a will
for your life, He will let it come to pass. Your job is only to
listen and to obey. As I looked into this topic in the Bible it was
interesting to note that some of the people God used had a bad self
image themselves and some of the people God used had an okay image
of themselves to start off with, but other people didn't think very
highly of them. Examples of people with a bad self image was
Moses, Gideon and Saul and examples of people of whom society
didn't think much was David, Mary, Peter etc. I decided to use a
couple of examples of this.
The first king of Israel was Saul.
He was very handsome and stood head and shoulders above everyone
else, the perfect icon of a king. He was the son of Kish, a rich
influential man from the tribe of Benjamin. After reading these two
sentences you would think that he would have a good self image and
that he would readily accept the role of king. I mean, he was
handsome, big and rich. What more could he ask for? But it was so
interesting to note what he thought of himself. This is what he
said after Samuel, the prophet, told him that he was the focus of
all Israel's hopes:
1 Samuel 9:21 "But I'm only from
Benjamin, the smallest tribe in Israel, and my family is the least
important of all the families of that tribe! Why are you talking
like this to me?"
Saul therefore definitely did
not have a good self image. Even though he was very
handsome and rich, he didn't see himself that way.
This could be true for us as well.
Others might see the potential in us that we don't see. They might
see what we can become. We should sometimes listen when we receive
praise from others. We should never become proud (by the way that
was exactly what Saul later became and it was his downfall), but a
good self image is promoted throughout the Bible. After all, Jesus
said that we should love our neighbors as we love
ourselves. If you receive a compliment or even better, a
prophecy spoken over your life, accept it graciously and don't look
down on yourself like Saul did. Accept who you are and believe that
you are wonderfully and lovingly made for God's purpose for your
life.
Now let's continue with the story.
Saul was then privately anointed by Samuel to be king over Israel.
And as Saul left to go home, the Spirit of the Lord came over him
and he started prophesying. He was definitely on a spiritual high
and experienced the power and might of the Lord firsthand. But just
a while later, Samuel gathered the whole of Israel together to
anoint their new king. They cast lots between the twelve tribes and
Benjamin was chosen. They cast lots again and the family of
Matrites was chosen and finally Saul was chosen as the new king.
And what did Saul do? What was his first reaction? He went to hide
between the baggage. If it wasn't such a serious matter it would
have been very funny. Here is their future leader, their military
hope against their eminent enemies and he was hiding away between
the baggage. He was scared to the bone. He had known this day was
coming and he was even on a spiritual high for a while, but when
the moment of truth arrived, he couldn't live up to the challenge.
He didn't believe in himself.
The same thing could happen to us.
After accepting our task from the Lord we could be fired up and
ready to take the challenge head on and we could even be
experiencing a spiritual high. But when push comes to shove, we
could also be very scared. Scared to step up to the challenge.
Scared to start. Maybe we are scared that other people might laugh
at us (by the way a couple of people did scorn at Saul and didn't
think he was quality material to be king), maybe we don't know how
to proceed further, maybe we are scared to even try because it
could be a failure. Who knows? But you certainly need to step up
and try. When you know what the Lord requires of you, start
preparing yourself for the day that He wants you to start. It might
be sooner than you think.
Lord, please give us the courage to
stand up and start when You called us to a task. Please give us the
strength to boldly do what You require of us. We want to make You
proud. Amen