Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in his own town of Ramah. Saul had expelled the mediums and spiritists from the land. – 1 Samuel 28:3

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 29, 2012): 1 Samuel 28

We all flip flop. We may get angry during political campaigns at politicians that flip flop, but it is actually something that is a common activity of our race. I sometimes find some our arguments humorous. Why do we bother talking about whether or not a fifty year old politician was involved with drugs in college? The fallacy is that we seem to expect that a person, at two very different stages in their lives, to be essentially the same person. But that is not true. We are changed by two strong forces in our lives – our experiences and our needs. This is the reason why, even though all of the evidence points to the fact that we need to start to save for our retirement while we are still in our twenties, that often we do not start to earnestly save for 

retirement until mid career – our experiences and, in this case especially our needs, have shaped our actions.

Saul had driven out all of the spiritists and mediums out of Israel. He did so because, at least on some level, he valued Samuel and wanted to follow Samuel’s God. And he had no need for the spiritists. But now Samuel was dead. Saul probably never realized how much he needed Samuel until after Samuel’s influence had been removed from the nation. And now that Samuel was gone and his influence had vanished, Saul found himself in a place that he had probably never prepared himself for (experience.) With Saul gone, his need had also changed. And that was about to lead him into a very bad and strange decision. He was about to go out to find a spiritist so that he could raise the spirit of Samuel up to talk with him.

The real question that we have to answer about ourselves is this – how have my experiences prepared me for the needs that I am about to face. If we have been proactive in life, we will have looked ahead and have prepared for the life that is still ahead (rather than living in the past and preparing for the needs of the past.) It was something Saul had never done. When our future surprises us, we set ourselves up for a flip-flop.

I think the loss of Samuel was bigger than anyone expected. It was definitely bigger than Saul expected. In life, he seemed too often to turn a deaf ear to the wishes of Samuel. But now he finds that he stands in need of the prophet. And ready to commit one of the biggest flip flops of his life.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Samuel 29