Thoughts on the Book of Samuel

Via Big Hollywood, I read this random thought from Victoria Jackson in her post Sunbathing Naked (Day One):

….I was reading in 1 Samuel 8 how Israel wanted a king and God did not want them to have a human king. God was the King of Israel. He gave them The Ten Commandments and other super smart laws, like not eating pork (it was not sanitary) and getting circumcised (prevention of disease), and ”an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” (crime prevention). God wanted people to obey Him because He is the smartest leader and loves us the most. But, Israel wanted a king really, really bad. A human King. God relented.

King Saul was elected. And it was bad for everyone.

This reminds me of America. When God was the King of America we were blessed. Our founding fathers built our country on the Judeo-Christian foundation of The Ten Commandments and the presence of no human King. The colonists were escaping the human king of England, seeking religious freedom and they set up our Government purposefully to prevent the corruption of power; thus, the legislative, executive and judicial branches of Government – all balancing out one another. No one man in charge. No human king. King God was engraved onto our money, put in our pledge, and carved into our buildings in Washington, D.C.  But, as time went on, just like Israel, we gradually started to take His blessings for granted, and abandon His laws. We kicked God out of the courts, the public school system, our families, and our personal lives. So, now we had no King. And we wanted a king really, really bad. A human king. God relented.

King Obama was elected. And it was bad for everyone...

As many people do, every Sunday we read the Bible together as a family at bedtime, and right now I'm also making my way through the Book of Samuel. To me, the strongest passages in Samuel was Chapter 12, when Samuel recounts for the people of Israel all that God has done for them- he lists all the amazing things that the Lord did for his people. That is powerful, and evidence of the real power of the Lord. Having a King rule over you and attacking your enemies and saying nice stuff like 'change' and 'hope' is nothing, and I'm always surprised when people want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Things were good when you follow the Lord, and abide by his laws, which I believe include the laws of natural law and the laws of the free market. God gave us life, liberty, and the ability to pursue and keep property, and the closer we stick to those beliefs, the more we will prosper. We should have been happy enough with the way America was going, but instead, like the people of Israel, we weren't happy enough with that and demanded a King to rule over us to decree hope and change, and the result is bad for us.