When God wants to take charge of the world, he doesn’t send in the tanks. He sends in the poor and the meek. ~N. T. Wright
Everybody wants a king. Someone to fight our battles, someone to fix what’s broken, someone who’ll carry the sword we can’t begin to lift.
Everybody wants a king, until we get one.
Everybody longs for a kingdom. A place where our will is done, our wishes realized, our ways and wit applauded at every turn.
Everybody wants to be a king, until we become one.
The book of Judges ends with an ominous tone, “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.” The prophet Samuel bears on his weary shoulders the complaint of God’s people. You and your words from God are not enough. Give us a king, like the other nations, a super hero to fight our battles, to lead us to prosperity. Give us a leader with less obscure demands than those God sends us.
God comforts a dejected Samuel. It is not a prophet, but God himself the people have deemed replaceable.
Samuel warns them–human leaders seldom keep their promises. Greed nips at the heels of power. We love our champions, but we come to despise their feet of clay. We love our sand-castle kingdoms, but, too soon, they wash away.
It’s humbling to be human when what we really prefer to be is God.
But we were made for so much more than the sum of our demands. Every page of the Bible sings with the promise, the Kingdom we long for is at hand. The King who fights our battles and fixes the unfixable is closer than we know.
And, to our never-ending surprise, we are the sword he wields.
Are you still looking for a human king to fix things?
In our series, An Alphabet Adagio, we are savoring the story of the Bible, our story, alphabetically. You can subscribe to e-mail above so you won’t miss a letter. Next: L is for Lament.
