Day 51- Think Before You Speak
📖Daily Reading
1 Samuel 11-24
🎥 Video
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
1 Samuel 14: 44
“Yes Jonathan,” Saul said, “you must die! May God strike me and even kill me if you do not die for this.”
Sandwiched in between the well known bible stories of Israel requesting a king and Saul being chosen and the David and Goliath story and the ensuing drama of Saul becoming jealous of David is this story entitled Saul’s Foolish Oath (NLT) (1 Samuel 14:24-46 depending on the version of the Bible you are reading). This is what God used to catch my attention this morning. How often have I said something in the heat of the moment and made a declaration without really thinking much less praying about it first. And then been faced with the choice to admit that I was wrong and potentially lose credibility with other people or plunge headlong into stick with my words even to my own demise and/or others.
As much as I hate to admit it, I identify much more with Saul than David. In order for God to demonstrate the folly humans demanding a king to be ruled by and before he gives us an example of a godly king in David, we get presented with the contrast of the opposite in Saul. Saul starts out earnestly trying to live up to what he has been selected for. He didn’t seek this position out. He seems humble and honest at first.
So lets take a minute and look at this nugget of a story in summary. The Israelites are battling with the Phillistines and having success. But Saul wants to finish them off and in his own ‘wisdom’ declares that no one may eat until until evening and the battle is won and there will be a curse that falls on anyone who doesn’t obey his order. His son Jonathan did not hear this order and he eats some honey. Someone tells him about his father’s order and he is dumbfounded, why would he make such order this would has only hurt us?! ‘…how many more Philistines we could have killed!’
The men were so ravenous with hunger by the end of the day, when they were plundering they butchered animals and just began eating. Saul heard of this and got upset that they were ‘sinning’ by not draining the lifeblood first. So here you hopefully start to see the irony and the lack of thinking before speaking and also caring how he is appearing in his own image that is demonstrated by Saul. But it doesn’t end here, he starts barking orders again. Finally a priest speaks up and says - ‘hey maybe we should ask God first?’. Saul says - oh yeah right, yeah lets ask God. So he prays, but he doesn’t get a response. So then thinks of himself again and his order and curse and says - God isn’t responding because someone disobeyed me.
They conduct ‘proceedings’ to determine who is guilty of sinning against Saul. It is discovered it is his own son Jonathan. He is so determined that is own order be obeyed that he is willing to kill his son rather than admit he was foolish and that he didn’t think (or pray) before giving his order. Throughout this tale, we also see that the people are responding to Saul with words like ‘what ever you say, whatever you think is best’… they aren’t thinking either! Finally when Saul is about to murder his own son, the people said, wait a minute, lets think about this…. ‘Jonathan is the reason we had victory’. Saul is given an opportunity to save face and save his son.
A cautionary tale for sure! For those of us that can convince ourselves that you have to honor your words ‘no matter what’, we especially need to really be careful to think before speaking. Maybe even pray and seek wise counsel first. Avoid making declarations and promises out of passion alone. When you are wrong - be man or woman enough to admit it. Don’t compound the problem more. It literally could save your life, someone else’s, a relationship, years of heartache etc..
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
Have you ever back yourself into a corner with your own words? How did you handle it? How did the situation handle you? Were you humble or did you let your ego have it's way?
📖Tomorrows Reading
1 Samuel 25-31
Coaching Opportunity
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