When I first read this passage and the situation with Samuel that God is addressing, the first thing that comes to my mind is the similarity we see around us everyday where people are putting all of the their hope and faith in other people instead of in God.  The elders in this passage and the people they represent just want/expect a leader that will make their nation just like the other “successful” nations, or even make it the best nation.  They expect the leader to make it happen and they don’t understand that the faith of a nation makes it happen.  In essence, they want to be like somebody else (nation) that appears to be successful and they expect one leader to make it happen.  We often see this in our own times in politics.  Most days some of the top stories nationally or locally involve elections, and the successes or failures of current leaders.  When you read all the commentary to these current events you consistently see that people just are expecting a leader to “take over” and make everything better, or just like other nations, or in most cases fix things so “I” or “my family” can be successful and have all the things successful people have.  Materialism…“the grass is always greener over there…so I want to copy what they do.”

 

In the passage God is telling Samuel that the elders lack faith in God, not Samuel. The nation has no faith and is expecting a mortal man to be exactly what they want, and they want Samuel (one man) to put the perfect person in place for it.  The elders “expect” great things to happen.  God is telling Samuel that the people are not faithful and that they are not praying for a competent new “faithful” leader and are not trusting that the Lord will provide.  God is also reassuring the faithful Samuel that Samuel still has to carry out his job for the nation; but God will help the faithful Samuel get it done if he listens to Gods word and direction.  He is advising Samuel to continue to be a God fearing leader, a leader who sees what his people need and goes forward and trusts that God will help him.  Along with this God is pushing Samuel to let the people know that God is working through Samuel, so that through the whole process the people will see what faith/trust in God can do.  Shouldn’t we do our jobs this way also?

 

As we will see in the continuing passages to this story, through Samuel God will create an example of how the efforts of many faithful people can bring about the desired outcome. God will also provide the leader and show faithful Samuel who the leader will be and how to present the new leader to the nation.
 

 

Your fellow traveler,

Tim