Give me a Father.

Not my words..but words that I felt, for some reason, that I needed to share. Maybe just because I might need to read them again...daily. =)

Give us a King.
-Bob Hamp

It was a strange time in Israel. The people who had seen the Living God pour Himself out in their midst turned to Samuel and asked that he appoint a king to rule over them.

4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” 1 Samuel 8:4-5

I wish I could tell you that I am not like them, but alas, I fear I am. I would never say it the way they did, but even that is part of the problem. We think that just because we do not say the words they said, that our hearts are not frighteningly similar.

I would say it more like this.

I wish I could wake up every day and have a predictable system that would help me to know that I am pleasing to God, and that my life is on track. If someone could just tell me how long my quiet time should be, and when in the day it should fall, I could rise to that standard and feel pleased with myself.

Or like this.

If I could compare all the pros and cons and sum up all the wise counsel, then I will know the next thing I should do. Like a system of weights and measures, I could comparison shop my decisions and make a reasonable choice. In particular, if all my friends were in agreement, I would be absolutely certain that I had arrived at the right choice.

Or, I might say it like this.

After lots of study, and a lifetime of testing the waters, I am fairly sure that I am in the right church now. These people are the closest to getting it right of anybody I know. Surely this must be the church that God has been waiting for. We have good (fill in the blank with words like scholarship, doctrine, worship, ministries), therefore I must be in the church that is finally “getting it right”.

The problem with the Israelites request isn’t simply that it was not God’s plan (though that is a significant problem). The problem with their request is that it unearthed the fears and insecurities that are hidden in all of us.

Walking with The Living God is mysterious and filled with sometimes-uncomfortable-process. Our life is guided by our best understanding of hearing God speak to us. God seems way to content to leave things unfinished for long periods of time. He seems more intent on digging into our souls, than in satisfying our momentary needs for closure or comfort. He seems like He wants to grow us more than He wants to make things clear and predictable.

But our heart’s cry sounds more like this:

“I want to know at the end of the day that I ‘got it right’. Give me a king.”

“I want to know what the rules are so I can be sure of the next several steps. Give me a king. “

“I want my life to be a simple process of exercising my will power. Give me a king. “

“I don’t want to be uneasy with making an unpopular decision. Give me a king. “

“I want someone else to do the hard work of digging into the mysteries and make it easy for me to understand. Give me a king. “

“Give me the steps. Give me a king.”

All these and more give us a glimpse into the kind of heart that cries out, “Give me a king.”

Dig a little deeper; I fear we might find an even uglier motive.

Think this through for a moment. If we have a king, he will tell us what to do. He will make clear the standards and expectations. He will provide the guidelines for how to live right. And if we can hang pretty close to these standards, we have someone to blame if things aren’t working.

“But God, I have been (now fill in the blank with words like: tithing, reading my Bible, serving, attending church) and things are not going the way I think they should. Why aren’t you making things better?” Somewhere down deep, if we have reduced God to a set of king-like, concrete, measurable standards, we can begin to blame Him when we are not having things our way.

The same kind of heart that led Israel to say “We want to be like the other nations, give us a king”, today leads us to look for easy measurable answers that can and should lead to predictable outcomes, allowing us to feel comfortable.

Perhaps the most tragic aspect of our bent towards king-wanting is what we discover when we consider the option that God offers instead of kings.

While we hunger for a king, God offers Himself: a heart-pursuing, ever-present Father. As desirable as this may sound, it also gives insight into a third reason why we humans might want a king instead.

Given a king, we can engage our minds, but keep our hearts safely locked away. Given a Father, we are called on to live in a vulnerable, heart engaged place, where the risk is more than just the fear of not meeting a standard. Engage your heart, and the risk is pain and rejection. Open up to a loving Father, and He may (did I say “may”?) ask that you surrender all your walls and give Him your battered, fearful heart. He may ask that you not simply obey Him, but that you trust Him.

The choice is still ours today. We can settle for the various concrete kings of measurable standards and self-protected performance. Or we can surrender our hearts to the Greatest Father ever, who promises He will never leave us or forsake us.

Give me a Father.