There is something deeply painful in the way Judas betrays Jesus. He comes to Him in Gethsemane and uses a kiss. A kiss should be an indication of love, compassion and closeness, yet Judas uses that sign of love as the sign of betrayal. Jesus asks him, “Judas, is it with a kiss that you are betraying the Son of Man?” (Luke 22:48). The contradiction is difficult to miss.
We know that God loves us. The Cross shows us how much He loves us. But knowing that God loves us raises another question: what is our response to that love? It is possible to receive love from God and still betray Him in the way we live. It is possible to receive grace, blessing and responsibility from Him, and then slowly allow our hearts to move somewhere else.
When I think of that danger, I think of Saul, the first human king of Israel. His life begins with humility and extraordinary grace, but it ends very differently. Saul’s story makes me ask whether the blessings God gives us always lead us closer to Him, or whether there are times when we forget where those blessings came from and begin to live as though they belonged to us alone.
Raised From Nothing
Before Saul became king, Israel already had a King. God was their King. Yet the people went to Samuel and demanded a human king because they wanted to be “like all the other nations” (1 Samuel 8:19-20). They wanted what everybody else had. God told Samuel that, in asking for another king, the people were rejecting Him as their King. Still, God permitted their request and chose Saul.
Saul did not begin as an arrogant man convinced of his own importance. When Samuel began to show him what God was about to do, Saul answered, “Am I not a Benjaminite, from the least of the tribes of Israel? And is not my family the humblest of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin?” (1 Samuel 9:21). He could not understand why such an honour should come to him.
Benjamin carried a painful history. Judges 19 to 21 records the terrible events at Gibeah and the civil war that followed, when the tribe was almost destroyed. That memory gives weight to Saul’s sense that he came from very little. He looks at himself and says, in effect, “I am a nobody. Why would you choose me?”
But God raised this man up. That is what is so striking about Saul’s beginning. In 1 Samuel 10:9 we read that God gave him another heart. Earlier Samuel had told him that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon him and that he would be changed into a different person (1 Samuel 10:6). Saul was given a new heart. He was given the Spirit of the Lord. The man who thought himself unworthy was being raised and transformed by God.
God also placed people around Saul whose hearts He had touched. When Saul returned to Gibeah, warriors went with him, and Scripture specifically says that God had touched their hearts (1 Samuel 10:26). Then, when Saul stood before Israel, the people accepted him and cried, “Long live the king.” For a man from Benjamin who had begun by asking why anybody would choose him, this was an extraordinary change of circumstances.
God’s grace was there in abundance. Saul had a calling, a new heart, the Spirit of the Lord, people around him who had been touched by God, and the acceptance of the nation. He had been raised from nothingness. And initially, he was faithful.
When Carelessness Enters the Heart
The tragedy is that Saul did not remain the man he was at the beginning. Slowly, carelessness set in. Arrogance set in. He began to behave in ways that were increasingly unlike a man who had been anointed by God.
One of the first signs appears when Israel is preparing to fight the Philistines. Samuel had instructed Saul to wait for him, but Saul became impatient and offered the sacrifice himself (1 Samuel 13:8-14). He would not wait. In his heart he had reached the point where he could say, in effect, “I can do this myself.” For me, that is the arrogance beginning to show.
Then Saul makes a rash oath during battle and orders his troops not to eat until the fighting is over (1 Samuel 14:24-30). Jonathan, who has not heard the oath, tastes honey and immediately sees how foolish the command has been. The problem is not merely that Saul made a bad military decision. He was beginning to act without asking God for guidance. The king who had once received everything from God was becoming confident in his own judgment.
The fall goes further when David enters the story. David defeats Goliath and becomes a great help to Israel and to Saul’s own kingdom. But when the people celebrate David’s victories, jealousy enters Saul’s heart. He hears them singing that Saul has killed his thousands and David his ten thousands, and he cannot bear it (1 Samuel 18:7-9). Instead of thanking God for the person who has helped preserve Israel, Saul begins to see David as a threat.
Jealousy grows into violence. Saul wants David dead. When Jonathan defends David, Saul becomes so enraged that he throws a spear at his own son (1 Samuel 20:31-33). Think of how far the heart has moved. Saul had been given another heart. He had received the Spirit of the Lord. Now he is prepared to strike his own son because jealousy and fear are controlling him.
The same deterioration appears in the terrible episode involving Ahimelech and the priests at Nob. David, fleeing from Saul, receives food and a weapon from Ahimelech, who does not know the full situation between Saul and David. When Saul learns what has happened, he refuses to listen to the priest’s explanation. His own soldiers will not kill the priests, so Saul turns to Doeg the Edomite, who kills eighty-five priests that day (1 Samuel 22:6-19). A king of Israel has reached the point of ordering the death of the priests of Israel.
This is the same Saul whom God had raised. The same man had been given another heart and the Spirit of the Lord. Yet Scripture later tells us that the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul (1 Samuel 16:14), and that Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with David but had departed from him (1 Samuel 18:12). His whole pattern of life had changed. He no longer resembled the man he had been at the beginning.
By 1 Samuel 28, the contrast is even more painful. Saul inquires of the Lord and receives no answer, neither through dreams, nor through the sacred lot, nor through the prophets. Instead of asking how he has come to this point and returning to God, Saul seeks out a medium at Endor (1 Samuel 28:6-7). This was a man to whom God had spoken. Now he is searching elsewhere for an answer. He has forgotten how God raised him and how God blessed him.
“I Regret That I Made Saul King”
There is a sentence in Saul’s story that I find very painful. In 1 Samuel 15:11, the Lord says, “I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not carried out my commands.” At the end of the chapter we are told again that the Lord regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel (1 Samuel 15:35).
Look at the distance between the beginning and the end. Saul began by saying, “I am a Benjaminite. I am the least. Why would you choose me?” God raised him, blessed him, gave him another heart, gave him His Spirit, surrounded him with people whose hearts He had touched and placed him over Israel. Yet somewhere along the way, Saul forgot. He allowed sin to enter his heart and take control.
That is why I cannot read Saul’s story only as something that happened to an ancient king. I have to look into my own heart and ask: is there a Saul hidden there? Can I look back and remember a time when I had very little, when God raised me, opened doors for me, gave me health, family, education, work, relationships, responsibilities and opportunities? What have I done with what He gave me?
Sometimes the very blessings God gives us become the things through which we begin to sideline Him. We trust our intelligence more than God. We trust money more than God. We place our confidence in health, beauty, possessions, status or career, and we forget the One who gave us the ability to receive any of these things. Saul’s problem was not that God had failed to bless him. His problem was that he forgot what those blessings were for and where they had come from.
This question becomes very practical when we look at the people God has entrusted to us. I have always believed that parents do not own their children. Parents are caretakers. God gives a child into their hands with love and asks them to care for that life. A parent may provide education, possessions and every material advantage, but there is also the responsibility to give the child Jesus. One day we have to ask what we did with the life and faith entrusted to us.
The same examination works in the other direction. How have we treated our own parents? I remember teaching fifth-standard children and, on the day results were given, seeing parents arriving to meet their children. One very bright child, someone I was particularly attached to, stayed close to me. She had received exceptional results. I asked her why her parents had not come. Tears filled her eyes and she said, “I don’t have parents.” I felt terrible that, as her teacher, I had not even known.
Many of us do not know what it means to have no parents. That should make us examine how we treat the parents we have been given, even when family relationships are imperfect or painful. Care facilities can provide food, shelter and comfort, but institutions cannot manufacture the love of a son or a daughter. The question is not simply whether our parents’ practical needs are being met, but what response we have made to the relationship God entrusted to us.
We can ask the same question about marriage, friendships, work and every other responsibility. Have I taken my spouse for granted? Have I used friendships carelessly and wounded people who trusted me? Have I allowed deceit and ambition to enter my work because I want to climb higher at any cost? Have I used the intellect God gave me only to push God away? What have I done with the blessings that once made me grateful?
God loves us just the way we are. That remains true. But deep within the heart, we still have to ask how we have responded to that love.
Retrace Your Steps Back Home
One of the easiest ways to stop examining ourselves is to say, “It is okay. Everybody does it.” We can justify almost anything once we begin using the majority as our measure. But just because many people do something does not make it right. If I know that something is taking my heart away from God, I cannot make it holy by pointing out how common it has become.
Saul’s life shows where repeated self-justification can lead. The man whose heart had once been changed by God eventually reached a point where he could no longer hear the answer he wanted from God. Then he went looking somewhere else. That is a warning for us. When our relationship with God has gone wrong, we should not simply break that communication and search for another voice. We need to rectify what has gone wrong. We need to take our steps back home.
I always believe that little children have the heart of God. Jesus points us toward the child when He speaks about the kingdom. Children begin with a certain innocence and simplicity, and then life places many things into that heart. We grow, we acquire, we succeed, we are hurt, we make choices, and sometimes the heart that once turned naturally toward God becomes very different. Saul was given another heart and became a different person, but later his heart changed again. The question is what has happened to ours.
Do not forget the blessings God has given you. Whatever you are today, every little thing and every tiny thing, has come to you through His providence. Look back at the beauty with which God has raised you. There was a time when you had nothing and could do nothing for yourself. Bit by bit He gave, raised, protected and blessed. God loves us just the way we are, but His love still asks for a response. Remember His love and ask whether our lives still resemble the heart He wanted to give us.
That is the examination I want to make in my own heart: Where have I gone wrong? Where have I pushed Jesus aside? When did my heart change? When did I allow the Spirit to leave? I know that I have made a mess of blessings. I know that I have been unworthy in many ways. The prayer is not to hide from that truth, but to say, “Lord, I am sorry for what I have done. Give me the grace to retrace my steps back home, to return to that purity of a little child, and to have a heart like Yours.”