I Samuel 8

I want to interact with something I just read in 1 Samuel 8:1-20. Verses 19-20 read (The Message Translation): But the people wouldn't listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We will have a king to rule us! Then we'll be just like all the other nations. Our king will rule us and lead us and fight our battles."

I have struggled with various things due to perpetual singleness for 35 years. I have never had a boyfriend. I have never had a man tell me he loves me and then act as though he means it. There has never been one to take me out on a romantic tryst through some city. I've never gotten a rose from a man. Never been kissed out of love from a man. The men just don't come around. Ever. All of this, when I think about it, dwell on it, mull it over, weighs me down. I am a happy, fairly carefree, spirited person who loves deeply, gives generously, and recognizes all her shortcomings, quirks and insecurities. I soldier on. Except when I think about what I don't have or have never had or what-have-you.

So, last night (1.29.11), I got depressed again (mainly due to hormones, but it doesn't matter because I went there and stayed there; I even threw a party) and cried and moaned and complained, begging "Why not me?" Why don’t I have a boyfriend/husband/child(ren)?

This morning, I read 1 Samuel, chapter 8. I paused at verses 19-20 and realized that I was doing what the Israelites had *just* finished doing when they wandered in the desert for 40 years. They whined and complained, as did I, about this, that and the other and God limited their space, time, money, resources, exactly as He had done with me. EXACTLY. (Note: Prior to moving to Atlanta and losing everything, I was not a complainer of anything.) They were eventually given the victory and lived happily for a short time before they forgot what just happened to them, what they had just come through and began doing it again. And this time, they got the victory (a smaller one each time they strayed, but a victory, nonetheless) but not before several thousand died in wars and after God became fairly and exponentially irritated with them.

In verses 19 and 20, they beg for a king. Samuel gives great detail as to how that is a bad idea. A king will rule the land, which is what they are asking for. They think they are asking for security. (They have it in God. They are rejecting that. Again.) They will get a king, and the king will protect them, but the king will also use them, abuse them, and eventually kill them through constraints and circumstances. But they want a king!

I read these verses and realized that in begging for a husband, I am doing the same thing. As a Christian woman, the husband would rule over me (Jesus, husband, wife, children) to protect me. By not allowing God to be my "husband," if you will allow the analogy, and by begging for something I do not have, I am not only rejecting the only "thing" I really need, I am opening myself up to any kind of terror that could befall me by being impatient.

I do remember my wilderness experience as I'm on the outskirts of it; I came out of it in December just before my birthday. I definitely have residual sin from the experience as I languished in my self-pity and incessant complaining. (I am working through it.) I also need to realize God has a plan.

I am not involved in the planning phase of it.

I am simply involved in the Glory-giving phase of it.

I must give Glory for what I *do* have right now. I don't know what the future holds and I really should not be concerned with it. However, I’m human. I do know what my present holds and I know what my past held and I need to be secure in that God knows what's going on as He is the beginning and the end and the Controller of All Things Alicia. He can see what I can't. I know there is someone out there that He has picked out for me and me for him. By begging for a “king” to rule over my and not waiting for Him to provide the most perfectest “king,” I run the risk of doing my own thing and selecting a “king” who would use and abuse (or at the very least, not be a good match in some significant way).

I just have to trust that God will continue to do His thing and I must be about my Father's business in the meantime and continue in obedience to His calling (and I think part of that is what I'm doing right now with this blog) and quit begging for a "king." God will allow me to accept something that is not what He has for me (we have free will :-}), even something it is outside of His original plan; and though He can make it "new plan" work, I truly want only what He has exactly chosen for me (generally speaking, not just the "king" issue).

That is the hard part, I think. Waiting indefinitely, in human terms, because God sees in millenia while we see in days, hours or even minutes.