Almost everything is subject to God. However, regarding His human (and angelic) creations, He granted them ‘free will,’ so that they can choose whether or not to be in a relationship with Him.
Jehovah granted this because He wants us to freely choose to love Him. True love is always freely given; it cannot be coerced…
Near the closing of the age of the judges, (see Communication Breakdown), the Israelites were being oppressed again by their life-long enemies, the Philistines. In response to His people’s outcries, God raises up the last ‘judge’ (also a prophet), named Samuel.
God speaks through Samuel, telling the Israelites that if they would return to Him, He would cover them again with His favor and liberate them (1 Sam. 7:3). Desperately, they obey, and the Promise Keeper delivers.
Twenty years pass. The people began to worry about Samuel’s advanced age; and they want him to appoint a successor to rule over them. However,they didn’t want another ‘judge,’ from which to receive instruction from God. Instead, because they had been cavorting with the ways of the world, they wanted a human king – just like those of the surrounding pagan countries.
In anguish, Samuel brought the people’s request before God. You can feel the pain in His response:
“Do everything they say to you,” the LORD replied, “for they are rejecting me, not you. They don’t want me to be their king any longer. Ever since I brought them from Egypt they have continually abandoned me and followed after other Gods. And now they are giving you the same treatment.
Do as they ask, but solemnly warn them about the way a king will rule over them. 1 Sam. 8:7 – 9. NLT
Thus, Samuel warned the people as God instructed him – telling them that their new ‘king,’ (named Saul, who was chosen for his good looks and tall stature), would send their sons to war, enslave other sons to make weapons of war, subjugate yet others to grow Saul’s food, conscript their land for his own use, and tax them 10% of their finest possessions (1 Sam 8:11 – 18.)
Unfazed by these dire prophecies, the people demanded their King Saul; and yet, in spite of them, God is merciful:
“All right, here is the king you have chosen. You asked for him and the LORD has granted your request. Now if you fear and worship the LORD and listen to His voice, and if you do not rebel against the LORD’s commands, then both you and your king will show that you recognize the LORD as your God. But if you rebel against the LORD’s commands and refuse to listen to him, then his hand will be as heavy upon you as it was upon your ancestors.” 1 Sam. 12:13 – 15. NLT
“The LORD will not abandon his people, because that would dishonor his great name. For it has pleased the LORD to make you his very own people.” 1 Sam. 12:22 NLT
So, God said that He would work with the king if the people stayed with Him.
However, within just two years, King Saul had sinned before God and fulfilled every prophecy Jehovah declared about Him.
True to form, when man wants to be a god, it always turns out badly. God removed His favor from Saul’s rule, and Samuel abandoned him as well.
Wanting to be a god is prideful:
Pride goes before destruction… Pr. 16:18 NKJV
Things go downhill for Israel, just as they go sour when we reject God. Why? Because then Satan has our ear, assaulting us with his dark suggestions. Moreover, when you have chosen to close yourself off from God, He lifts His favor off of you – making you more vulnerable to the adversary’s attacks.
When we walk without God, we have anger issues (see Anger Kills), and we pass our ungodly behavioral consequences onto our children (see What Are We Teaching Our Children), which sucks out the quality of their lives.
We’ve seen that a steady diet of the devil’s babble, facilitates your creation of ego (see The Dark Mind), which makes you think your self-worth is suspect. Then it can manipulate you into behavior that sets you up for a slow suicide.
It does so by suffocating you with a darkened illusion of your past, so that you cannot step into the present (see The Past Sure is Tense).
And because most people are closed off in their own heads, trying to figure out how to fix their unique situation, the ability to have a meaningful and truthful dialogue with other people is non-existent (see Communication Breakdown). Loneliness ensues.
God is love, He is relationship. His template for the human model for relationship is found in the Prophets, Christ and the Apostles. When we break our connection with God, we no longer have the guidance of the Holy Spirit, so we can no longer access that necessary wisdom in our human relationships.
All these things occur when you don’t walk with God. The biggest consequence of living this way, is that when you reject God, your relationship with Him, with yourself, and with others, is broken.
Our entire lives are lived within the framework of relationships. Yet for most people, living in relationship is the hardest part of living.
Outside of God, no one gave us a manual for how to relate to others. In fact, we’re thrust into relationship at birth, and then we blindly plow through each successive one, trying to learn how to do relationship. Worse, we are indoctrinated with how our parents do relationship, with all its unworkable parts – especially if God is absent in the home.
Then, rather relating to God, you look to the Dark Mind (ego), whose only purpose is to gain control over your psyche and have you in its servitude. Because of the lies it smeared your conscience with, you fall in and out of ‘acquaintances,’ because you are afraid to share who you really are.
We look at life through ‘filters’ consisting of our Life Story, with all of its embellishments of meanings that we gave to the string of events lived thus far. This is not because our past was so wonderful, but due to the trauma that we perceived within them.
Ultimately, many people surmise that others aren’t safe, and fear that they will reject them. So, they throw up walls of defense in the form of false self-images, hoping others will at least fall in love with their ‘mask.’
Our soul takes on a slipperiness, wiggling out of the ‘acquaintance’ before we get hurt. Thus, our primary need for love and acceptance goes unmet.
We don’t even love ourselves, because our ego has taught us that we have revolting characteristics. Again, we try to separate from ourselves with yet another mask.
Until these challenges are resolved, nothing will fill your emptiness. For if you don’t know how to love yourself, how can you expect others to know?
Ultimately, we show up for relationships at a HUGE disadvantage – looking for someone to ‘fix’ us. We’re sad, grieving over what we think is wrong with us; and we are exhausted from trying to seek out someone who will give us what we believe that we don’t have.
Ironically, when we meet people, we hold up our false persona to those we seek, desperately hoping that they will believe we already have what we are convinced we lack.
We dance frenetically, trying to garner the favor of others, so that we might receive external repair.
Okay. Now you’ve seen what state many people are in when they approach a relationship, after they have rejected their Creator. Next time, we will observe how they end up deconstructing whatever transient relationship they are able to muster. This is the epitome of our undoing.
In order to be able to better solve a problem, we have to know how we constructed it, so that we can stop the offense, by offering more exacting prayer as we lay our rejection of God aside…
Goodnight and God bless.