Do you think of yourself as a leader? You should. Leadership is simply influence, and at a minimum, anyone with a social media account has influence. Truly, you are influencing those around you, from your kids to your coworkers to neighbors and, ultimately, a city. That’s a heavy weight on your shoulders.
There’s not a single leader in scripture that had a perfect path. That’s either super disheartening or super encouraging, depending on the day. But there are countless case studies for us to refer back to as we stumble and fight our way into being better leaders.
I’m intrigued by Old Testament Saul, not the Saul that ends up being Paul, who we all love. But the bad-guy Saul, or at least, so he seems. How did he end up being the king of Israel? He couldn’t have been all bad, right? What do we know about him?
Saul wasn’t spiritually savvy. He wasn’t always gunning to be king or a voice to the nation. Leading up to his anointing, he was consistently lost and not aiming for much. Even after he met Samuel, who told him he was chosen, he seemed confused.
But God had chosen Saul as the king Israel wanted—the king they thought they deserved. He was tall, good-looking, and rich—a king like the other nations had.
Israel rejected God as their king. They wanted to be like the rest of the world with a king who would uphold justice and fight their battles. They didn’t realize what they had with God. Even after Samuel warned them a king would take their sons into battle, their daughters into his palace, and the rest of their people into the fields while taxing everything they produce, they still demanded a human king.
God granted their request, but not without boundaries and consequences. This king would be chosen by God and subject to God. The people would face oppression by his hands, and the success or demise of their nation relied on his obedience to God. We all know that didn’t go well.
You can have a king, but on my terms. You can have a ruler, but his power is limited. You can go down this path, but you won’t like where it ends.
Free will is tricky. God doesn’t force us to obey; that wouldn’t be genuine. He wants us to respond out of our love for Him and desire to be in-step with Him. So, there will be countless times when we choose ourselves instead. We think we’re right, we think we know best, or we strictly follow our feelings. All roads lead to disobedience and consequences. Israel has the “opportunity” to learn this lesson over and over and over again.
Enter Saul. God’s choice. And he wasn’t ready on his own—God had some work to do.
Samuel pulls Saul aside, anoints him with oil, and lays out God’s plan. There will be signs that prove all God is going to do. Samuel wraps it up by saying:
“‘Then the Spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. Now when these signs meet you, do what your hand finds to do, for God is with you. Then go down before me to Gilgal. And behold, I am coming down to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice peace offerings. Seven days you shall wait, until I come to you and show you what you shall do.’ When he turned his back to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart. And all these signs came to pass that day.”
1 Samuel 10:6-9 ESV
For Saul to be the first king of Israel, he was going to need the Spirit. Saul, on his own, was useless for this calling. He was always intended to be a vessel for the purposes of God. Without the indwelling of the Spirit of God, Saul would have had nothing.
And the Spirit had a lot of work to do, starting with turning Saul into a new man altogether. How’s that for a vote of confidence? The people will love you as this king they think they want, but in order for me to use you, we’ve got to change everything about you.
Everything that Saul was needed to change for this calling.
But once this has happened, you can move forward and know God is with you. Because there is nothing left! God is the only thing he’s got. But Samuel isn’t going to leave Saul on this new path. He promises to meet him in 7 days to offer worship to the Lord and let him know what’s next. All Saul has to do is wait.
As he started on his journey, God gave him another heart. The process had started. You can’t become a new man without a new heart. The language is similar to:
“And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”
Ezekiel 11:19-20 ESV
God was marking Saul not only with His Spirit but also with His heart. If Israel’s king was going to know how God wanted to lead His people, he would need a soft heart tuned to God’s heart. Saul’s makeover was complete.
But that didn’t mean he was confident in his calling. When the time came for Israel to meet their first king, Saul was hiding in the baggage.
Anointing and confirmation don’t always eliminate reluctance.
Saul was likely more aware than ever of the weighty task ahead of him.
After he stood in front of his nation as king, he quickly met two groups of people: supporters and haters. A calling of that magnitude will always bring about both. God influenced the hearts of the men in support, and they immediately joined Saul on his journey. The Bible calls the other group “worthless.” They were quick to cast doubt that Saul could save Israel, but they were asking the wrong question—Saul was never going to “save them,” God was. Saul was silent in the face of their questioning. I guess he found that listening to haters is worthless anyway.
Saul quickly experienced victory as king with the help of the Spirit—he even spared the haters the punishment they deserved. The nation was happy with their choice, and Saul was off to a good start. But it didn’t last long.
After the people affirmed Saul as king, Samuel was ready to tap out. He’d done what they’d asked, he’d served faithfully and he’d stood on God’s Word even when the people didn’t want to hear it. For his parting words, he warned Israel again:
“If you will fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, and if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God, it will be well. But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you and your king.”
1 Samuel 12:14-15 ESV
God sent a sign confirming Samuel’s words, and then the people finally saw and believed. (Why do we always have to see it in order to believe it?) They acknowledged their sin and repented—wild. Samuel reminded them that God had chosen them and will always be with them, but, one last time, if you mess it all up, you and your king will be “swept away” (v. 25). There are consequences to breaking the covenant.
Unfortunately, the next chapter marks the beginning of the end of Saul’s leadership. Remember in chapter 10 when Samuel told Saul to wait a week so that Samuel could offer sacrifices and show Saul what to do next?
“He waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him. So Saul said, ‘Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the peace offerings.’ And he offered the burnt offering. As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came. And Saul went out to meet him and greet him. Samuel said, ‘What have you done?’ And Saul said, ‘When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord.’ So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.’
And Samuel said to Saul, ‘You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.’”
1 Samuel 13:8-14 ESV
Saul did some of what Samuel asked. He gathered the people in the right place. His next step was to wait on Samuel. But Saul got nervous. The seven days were up, his people were running afraid, and Samuel hadn’t shown up yet. So Saul took matters into his own hands. He remembered what Samuel said he was going to do, and Saul knew what the law said about offerings. His fear led him to disobey.
From a human perspective, it seems silly or even justified. What would you have done in Saul’s position? But disobedience is disobedience. It wasn’t about the sacrifices or God’s favor—Saul disregarded God’s command. He’ll later make a similar mistake where Samuel reminds him:
“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to listen than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is as the sin of divination,
and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
he has also rejected you from being king.”
1 Samuel 15:22-23 ESV
Saul was full of excuses when he was found disobeying God’s commands. Samuel was late, the Philistines were coming, or his best excuse, the people made him do it (v. 21). But Saul’s disobedience revealed his lack of trust in God. He thought he knew better or could do better, faster.
That’s the tension of leadership, isn’t it? You’ve been chosen, equipped, and empowered to lead. People have been entrusted to you, decisions have to be made, and the show must go on. But our leadership ultimately falls under God’s leadership. Just like Saul, we may be “king” of a nation, but God is the King of Kings. He just chooses who to use for his purposes. We decide to take matters into our own hands instead of waiting on God because we get uncomfortable, there’s pressure from those around us, or we aren’t where we expected we’d be by now.
There’s a lot to be learned from Saul, good and bad. I know he gets a bad rap most of the time, but I think he’s more relatable than we give him credit for.
#1 - Anointing happens in private.
God’s oil falls on those whom He chooses in the privacy of His presence. You can’t muster anointing—it’s by God’s hand. While Saul’s anointing was later confirmed by signs and the nation of Israel, it started on the side of the road with just Samuel and Saul.
#2 - Your calling is nothing without the Spirit.
We all needed new hearts. We all needed to be new people. And we needed the Spirit to do that work. Because of Jesus, we have the gift of His Spirit in us from the moment we surrendered our lives to Him. He’s already there. He’s already made us new creations, and we can invite Him to continue shaping us.
Not only is He working in us but through us. All of our efforts are useless without the Spirit. We like to think we can do our jobs, raise our kids, heal our bodies, fight our battles, or even just breathe without Him, but we can’t. Invite Him in. Walk in His power.
#3 - God won’t leave you by yourself.
He’s invested in your calling. He didn’t send you out on your own to figure it out by yourself. He calls you, and He goes with you. There will be times, like Saul, when you have no idea what’s next, you don’t know why you were signed up for this, and you are swallowed up by fear in the face of the enemy. God is with you. There’s something miraculous about getting down to rock bottom knowing it’s just you and God left.
#4 - Confidence in your calling comes and goes.
Sometimes I feel like Saul hiding in the baggage—actually, a lot of times. I have days when I doubt every word God has said to me and about me. I let the enemy’s voice shout louder than the Truth that I know. It’s easy to do. Other days, I’m stomping on Satan’s neck, declaring who God says I am and walking in what He’s called me to do. It’s a fight to keep your confidence. And I don’t mean confidence in yourself, but confidence in what God has said. Know that the days will come when you aren’t sure, and when they do, phone a friend, remind yourself through old journals, and crack open God’s Word to wash your heart in Truth.
#5 - Haters are worthless.
I don’t even like the term “haters,” but it is what it is. There will be people in your life who disagree (and that’s putting it mildly) with what God wants to do with you. There will be people who just don’t like you: your personality, your voice, your vibe, your confidence, your approach. There will also be people who reject you. But one good thing Saul did was keep his peace in the face of opposition—he kept his mouth shut. It is worthless to engage with these people. It’s only a distraction set up by the enemy.
#6 - The path to your calling always involves waiting. And more waiting.
I’m so over this idea, but it’s true. We can learn from Saul there are consequences to bypassing the waiting. Taking matters into our own hands can derail us, big time. If you know you are being asked to wait, you better wait. Or you will be waiting and waiting and waiting. It’s not punishment, it’s preparation.
The question is, do we trust God with the timetable? Or do we think we can control the situation? I’m embarrassed to say I tend to want to take control and often try to, with no luck. Our culture only knows how to get what we want when we want it—we are conditioned to be impatient. I don’t want to be the spoiled child constantly complaining when things don’t go my way. I want to trust that God is always on time.
#7 - Your leadership isn’t yours.
In a similar vein, you aren’t the boss, you aren’t in charge, you aren’t the end-all-be-all—God is. He has chosen to use you as a vessel, an instrument. His leadership is the ultimate leadership, but he invites us to participate! So if you find yourself running off on your own (i.e., Saul), you will get ahead of what God has for you. Spending time in His presence is what protects us from ourselves. Never stop checking in, surrendering your calling back into His hands, and laying every step at His feet. He is the Leader of leaders.
What can you learn from Saul?
Who can you share this with today?
