1 Samuel 13:12-14 (MSG) Samuel said, “What on earth are you doing?” Saul answered, “When I saw I was losing my army from under me, and that you hadn’t come when you said you would, and that the Philistines were poised at Micmash, I said, ‘The Philistines are about to come down on me in Gilgal, and I haven’t yet come before God asking for his help. So I took things into my own hands, and sacrificed the burnt offering.”
Samuel’s opening question cuts right to the heart of the issue. “What on earth are you doing?” Notice Saul says: “I took things into my own hands”. Saul ran out of patience. The enemy was pressing, his men were scattering, so he took matters into his own hands. Instead of waiting for Samuel to arrive, he began to offer the sacrifices himself. If only he had waited just a little bit longer. He waited seven days, but the seventh day wasn’t over yet, late on the seventh day Samuel arrived.
It is foolish to let go of God and his word in your time of need. Are your problems overwhelming? Is everyone else around you responding in fear? Is God not delivering you right away? Are you tempted to give in to fear and do the wrong thing? Then that’s when you need God the most!
1 Samuel 13:13 (NIV) “You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.
Samuel told Saul: “You have acted foolishly.” There it is – it is foolish to let go of God and his word in your time of need. Saul become impatient and decided to take the matter into his own hands.
Psalm 37:7 “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways when they carry out their wicked schemes.”
Impatience is a form of unbelief. It’s what we begin to feel when we start to doubt God’s timing. The opposite of impatience is a deepening, peaceful willingness to wait for God to come through.
Whichever way you have to battle impatience, the main point today is that it’s a battle against unbelief. It’s the issue of whether you live by faith and whether you inherit the promises of God.
Luke 21:19 — “By your endurance [patience] you will gain your lives.”
Hebrews 6:12 — “Do not be sluggish but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”
Psalm 130:5 (NIV) “I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.”
The strength that sustains you in patience is hope, and the source of hope is the word of God. “In his word I put my hope.” And hope is just faith in the future tense. Hebrews says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.”
Charles Spurgeon once said; “Stand still” – keep the posture of an upright man, ready for action, expecting further orders, cheerfully and patiently awaiting the directing voice; and it will not be long before God shall say to you, as distinctly as Moses said it to the people of Israel, “Go forward.”
Remember God is never late and rarely early. He is always exactly right on time – His time, not your time.