Fear is the “mind-killer” – or so the hero of cult sci-fi classic Dune is told to remember. In the case of Saul – and potentially in our case we could say much the same. Perhaps even more seriously that fear, because it is a mind-killer, is also a soul-slayer.
Fear comes repeatedly in Saul’s story. We wonder about Saul’s character early on in his appearance. He and his servant are looking for his father’s donkeys, and it seems to be the servant who knows what to do, and where to go. After Saul is privately anointed as King by Samuel he disappears, and hides among the baggage. There are stories of people dragged to thrones and bishops chairs, showing reluctance to become leaders of men. But still we wonder. Is Saul one of these, or is there something more holding him back?
Saul is told by Samuel to do whatever his hand finds to do at Gibeah. But the first two stories of military attacks at Gibeah turn out to be the work of Jonathan, who shows a large amount of bravery and courage – which his father happily claims the credit for (1 Samuel 13:4). In the second half of chapter 13 Saul faces an army disappearing, an enemy mustering, and a late to arrive prophet – and so he carries out the sacrifice instead of waiting for Samuel – he lacks the courage to wait, the courage to obey.
In chapter 15 Saul again fails to carry out Samuel’s instructions – and Samuel’s words are intriguing in response:
17And Samuel said, t“Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. 18And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ 19Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? uWhy did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?”
Saul was supposed to execute God’s judgement on the Amalekites – and the spoil from the victory was not to be taken by the people. Saul ignores this and takes the best of the spoil for himself and his people. Samuel is not impressed. But his opening words are striking. Saul is said to be ‘insignificant’ or ‘little’ in his own eyes – even though God has made him king over Israel. And then comes Samuel’s questions as to why Saul has not obeyed God’s voice. The dialogue continues, and a little further on we get this explanation from Saul:
24Saul said to Samuel ac“I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.”
Saul finally admits his sin, and explains it by the fact that he feared the people – and so he obeyed their voice – the ESV helpfully shows us that this is the same phrase used for the obedience he should have had to God – but in fact, rather than listening to God’s voice, his listens to the voice of the people. He does this because he is afraid.
I think this is linked to being ‘small in his own eyes’. I don’t think Saul here has properly grasped what it is to be God’s anointed. There is a right humility we all need, but there is an also a right sense of our own significance. We are made, we are created by God, for a reason. We are, Paul tells us, his workmanship – created with good deeds to do. None of us are junk. None of us are insignificant in God’s eyes. So we shouldn’t be in our own eyes either. When we view ourselves as insignificant it will be easy to also fear people in a way that leads us to listen to them more than God.
Saul’s fear here leads him to disobey God’s commands, and moves him away from a humble dependance on God’s direction to a self protective self reliance. This means that, in the story told in chapters 18 and following of 1 Samuel, Saul’s fear takes a darker turn. Saul fears David’s success. He fears David’s popularity. His fear becomes jealousy, jealousy of what he could have had, but never did, because he gave way at every turn to fear.
Saul’s fear blinds him to what he could be for David. He could, like Jonathan, recognise David’s anointed, and plan an orderly succession. But he chose to cling to what he has, fearful – and aggressive because of his fear.
We tend to think of fear as a reaction that is beyond our control. As a child afraid of the thunder, so we can’t help our fear. There is some truth to that with some of our fears. But there are other fears that we need to do something about. We need to face up to fear and take steps to move beyond the fear. We cannot live for ever avoiding our fears. The danger is that a life where we give way to fear quickly becomes a life where we control others because we fear what happens if we allow them to thrive.
Ultimately the fear of people, and the craving for their approval is crippling. Jesus speaks to the Pharisees in John 5 and says these words:
How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?
Jesus – John 5:44
There is only one place we should go for approval and affirmation. We long for others to applaud us, and we fear the silence and rejection when they do not. The word “glory” in 1 Samuel is related to the word for weight. It contains the idea of significance and of value. Jesus in John 5:44 tells us that the only place where real value and significance can be truly found is in God.
When we see the approval of people we change ourselves to fit their narrative and we miss out on what God intends for us. When we seek to find value and significance in God we find that he has made us intrinsically valuable, gifted for service to him and his world. When we trust in Christ we are united to him, and we are beloved in him. We have the value to God that Christ has to him. We see that value shown supremely in the lengths to which God in Christ was prepared to go to bring us back to him, when we were utterly lost in our own fears and self-centredness.
The God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is the God who is continually giving himself. Each person of the Trinity for the other, and that giving spills over into creation. God’s goodness is a giving of himself for us. So in seeking our meaning and significance in him, we are not seeking meaning and significance in a fallible human who will use us, rather we are seeking meaning and significance in the God who designed us as we are, making us to reflect his image in who he has made us to be.
And thus we are given the basic tools to live a life free from fear of people, trusting in the One who made us to show us our significance and value in his eyes. As we reflect on the narrative of 1 Samuel we are shown how not to be like Saul, but instead to be something like his son Jonathan, who lived knowing that God could save, even by a few, and knowing that it was better to lay down his life for God’s King, than to try and cling on to his life to make himself king.
Joshua's Tree Rooted 