Doing It Right
I really like the story of King Saul and King David in the Bible. Saul was a "head and shoulder" kind of leader. He depended on his own smarts and his own strength. He made sacrifices that only the priest should have made. He makes a rash vow. He disobeys the Lord in destroying the enemies of Israel. In the end, he disqualified himself from leadership. A haunting thought that has been my adversary for years is the thought that somehow I have, like Saul, disqualified myself from service to God. I have wanted to do the Christian life the right way. I hoped I was doing it well enough to get God's blessing. This would not have been my official theological position, but it was the hope of my heart to earn God's blessing. My attempts to earn God's blessing though brought more doubts because my many sinful thoughts, sinful motives, and sinful actions. Then the events in my life started pointing to the fact that I was not going to be achieve certain goals. This m...