Power Failure

An impromptu high-wire act by a 26-year-old man caused a portion of Dongguan, a city in China, to experience a blackout. The man had lost his job and chose to drown his sorrows by drinking heavily. After his binge, the drunken one climbed a high voltage cable tower and began walking and hanging on the power cables. When firemen couldn’t coax him down, they ordered the electricity to be shut off so he wouldn’t electrocute himself. Four hours later, the guy finally fell . . . landing softly on a safety cushion where he was “greeted” by police.

King Saul once had a power surge (1 Samuel 10:6), but he lost it all due to a rash decision. In the span of just four chapters, we find the prophet Samuel anointing Saul as Israel’s king (v.1) and then informing him that God had rejected him as ruler of His people (v.14). Why the abrupt change? Samuel made it plain to Saul: “Because you have not kept the Lord’s command.”

The command was clear. Samuel told Saul to camp out at Gilgal for a week until he arrived there to “sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings” (1 Samuel 10:8). But the king got uptight when the mighty Philistine army with “as many warriors as the grains of sand on the seashore” (v.5) caused his army to begin “trembling with fear” (v.7).

With his army defecting and growing smaller by the hour, Saul (literally) chose to play with fire and did the burnt offering himself (v.9). That’s when Samuel caught him red-hot-handed and gave him the bad news—his days on the throne were numbered.

Have you been tempted to make a rash decision—one that doesn’t honor God? Fear can cause us to short-circuit our faith and future. Let’s choose to obey God instead. He’s got all the power we need.

—Tom Felten

Taken from “Our Daily Journey”