Move on

"The LORD said to Samuel, "How long will you mourn for Saul..." 1 Samuel 16:1

Pressing into God leaves us vulnerable. We reach a place spiritually where we no longer look for God to serve us, meet our needs, like children. Instead, under His guidance, His sustaining grace we find ourselves seeing things from His point of view. We grieve with the spirit of God. We pray, and instead of finding relief we find the distress that seeing things from God's view point brings.

There is no relief from such a burden. The masses run to God with their problems, but the prophet finds nowhere to turn. When the prophet spent a night in prayer he only found more distress. But God has made a decision concerning what distresses Him. God moved on. God picked another king. And now the prophet must move on as well. Some things prayer only makes worse for us.

We cling to the past, we cling to our ideals and we find no help from God. He won't let us go back in time. For some issues the only cure is to rise, "and be on your way". Brothers and sisters in Christ, we live in a fallen world. We live in a world where promise often does not reach its potential. We are not on earth to be loyal to any king, nor are we on earth to rebel against any. All the world's governments, even those like Saul that were ordained by God, will be brought into account - someday. Jesus taught about a day when the sheep will be separated from the goats. "All the nations will be gathered before him...."(Matt 25:32). Daniel prophesied about a rock that was "cut out, but not by human hands" (Dan 2:34). That rock crushed an image that represented all the governments of human history. No matter how much we are distressed in the current situation in our country. No matter how much of that distress is truly borne in the heart of God, there remains a rock which we must heed.

The crisis we face is not financial or military. The danger we face is not whether we are socialist or capitalist. The issue before us as people of God is how long we will cling to any human ideal of government after God has said move on.You see there is change coming. There is a new kingdom coming. There is a new world coming. It is that "rock cut out but not with human hands." As people of God we don't have to cling to Saul or any other ideal. The gospel survived the fall of Rome. Empires and nations have come and gone and the gospel has been preached to all of them. Change is coming. The remnant hears the prophet crying out, "Surrender to Babylon and live!"

Never cling to an ideal at the expense of moving on with God.