From the Daily Audio Bible for May 11, 2011 (yes, I’m a little behind).
Listen to the Reading: 1 Samuel 10:1-11:15 ~ John 6:43-71 ~ Psalm 107:1-43 ~ Proverbs 15:1-3
We all at one time or another feel the call of God to rise up into something new, into who we were meant to be. It is there all the time. It is just deeply implanted into us. The assaults of life force us back and we have to contend for what we are going to become in Christ. So much of the time the wounds of life have us settling that we are less than we had hoped, that we are less than we should be. We know it because there is a dull ache and it is always there, right? You lie in bed at night before you fall asleep and you think thoughts like this: “There has got to be more than this.” That is because there is more, but normally we don’t know even how to approach the more that there is. So we fill it with all kinds of distractions, obsessions, addictions. We’re looking for life, is what we’re looking for. We’re looking for the life that we were meant to live. We are created in the image of God, so there is something deep in us that is screaming for that kind of life.
So Saul, he’s the one. Samuel has already prophesied over him, but then to bring it all together and to prove it true, Israel comes together and chooses by lot and it comes right down to Saul’s family. Then it comes right down to Saul. But Saul isn’t there. So here the lot is chosen for Saul to be king, but Saul isn’t present. So everybody is going like “is there somebody else?” “I mean, the person chosen king isn’t here.” “What is going on?” And the Word of the Lord comes, “Saul is hiding in the baggage.”
How often is that our story? We are invited to rise up and assume the life we were created to live, but we’re hiding in the baggage.
Prayer: Our Heavenly Father, we want to be done with the baggage because it is baggage. It is dead weight. What has gone before us is in our past. What is our story without you is done, the wounds of life, the terrible decisions that we’ve made, the terrible things that have been done to us, the things that have framed our lives but have also given us very narrow parameters to live in because that is the only place we feel safe. So we construct this personality and this aura and this character around where we feel safe—this is all informed by the bad things that have happened to us. It is not informed by the fact that we are created in your image and that it is you which lives in us. It is informed by the assaults of life. That is actually something we need to repent of. We repent that we have allowed the injustice on both sides, things that have been done and things that we have done to dictate who we are going to be. We repent because it is your life that we seek. As believers, we are to die to ourselves and be raised up with Christ. That means everything that we were is dead and buried. When we go into the baptismal river and we go beneath the water and we come back up, we have died and buried who we were and have been raised up with Christ anew. Old things have passed away. That is exactly how we describe those who have died. They passed away. You say in scripture “old things have passed away and all is new.” So we embrace the life we were created to live, living with the life force of the Holy Spirit inside rather than us trying to arrange for life in a way that will never work. Come, Holy Spirit, we invite you. Lead us into all truth. Lead us away from the baggage. In Christ’s name we pray, amen.
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