Saul’s son Jonathan decides to “go rogue” and take on the Philistines by himself with his armour-bearer and is extremely successful. This is often credited as a great act of faith and trust in the Lord. But is it?
Earlier in the story we read that Saul becomes impatient waiting for the man who is designated by the Lord to provide sacrifices and decides to offer the sacrifices himself. When that man — Samuel — arrives he tells Saul that he has done a bad thing and shown his contempt for the Lord, and so his reign as king is over. A new man after God’s heart will become king.
Of course this doesn’t happen right away, at this point it’s more prophecy than proclamation.
But! later we see this episode with Jonathan and his armour-bearer. Jonathan declares that if the Philistines do X then God IS NOT in the plan, but if the Philistines do Y then God IS in the plan! What struck me about this was the lack of any kind of prayer. There is no record that Jonathan ever consulted God on this in any way. Yet the results make it clear that God showed up.
Is that how this works? We don’t need to submit our plans to God? We just need to have faith and dare Him to show up? I don’t think so… but then how do we square this circle?
My theory: God is showing Saul that His blessing is on Israel as a nation rather than Saul as its king. We often see God do amazing things in spite of ourselves. I think this is no different. I don’t know that God was thrilled to have Jonathan dictate to Him what He was going to do, but I think God used this as an opportunity to show Saul, who had been sitting, waiting, doing nothing that His anointing was on the people. This was God signalling the beginning of the end.
I guess what I’m saying is this: don’t start thinking of yourself as a giant of the faith because God seemed to bless what you did. Remember that every good gift comes from Him and that sometimes we succeed in spite of ourselves. Let’s do everything we can to stay humble. God can use anyone he wants to achieve his purposes. Even a donkey! And I don’t know about you, but I would way rather be Moses than Pharaoh.