What's up with Saul!?

Today, as I was reading, I found myself asking this question.  "What is up with Saul!?"  Don't you find yourself asking that sort of question of biblical characters from time to time?  "What could have been going through his head when he did some of the things that he did!?!"  Today, for me, it was Saul.  But then I went back and re-read the story.  I put myself in Saul's place.  As I did that, I found myself giving him a much more sympathetic reading.

Saul faced real problems.  Things often didn't go the way that he planned.  God repeatedly spoke to him and worked in and around him, but he was often in way over his head.  He was thrust forward into an incredibly challenging leadership situation that he neither desired nor sought.  He actually started out pretty well.  He led with humility and obeyed the Lord.  He felt God's anointing on Him and was empowered by God.  He refused to avenge himself unrighteously on those who mocked his leadership.  Not a bad start.

Then, Samuel was late.  Samuel had promised to show up and didn't.  The enemy, however, did show up on time.  Saul's men were deserting him, the enemy host was swelling, and Samuel was nowhere to be seen.  Saul waited as long as he dared.  He knew that the battle would be starting soon, with or without Samuel.  He knew that he dare not go into battle without seeking the Lord's blessing.  So, he looked as his situation, planned a strategy, and executed a perfectly reasonable leadership decision.  He was compelled to do something!  Just then, Samuel arrived and brought a stinging rebuke with him. 

It is easy for me to sit comfortably in my office and render judgment on an Iron Age king.  I am so far removed from armies and battles, the pressures and daily realities of Saul's life.  I also have the benefit of supernatural hindsight.  I can see Saul's whole life neatly summed up in a few chapters f divinely inspired text.  Saul had none of my distant objectivity.  Saul was living the life that God had given him as best as he knew how.  His life was made up of one natural and reasonable decision after another.He started out well, but ended badly.  The real problem with Saul was that he made each decision without calculating God into the equation.  He was a real man, but a man who failed to involve God in the details of his life.  He relied on common sense but failed to heed the uncommon graces and revelations of God. 

Now that is something I can understand.  How often do I fail to view my life through heaven's eyes?  How often do I examine situations and analyze solutions without taking the wisdom and power of God into account?  How often do I feel compelled to do something, the thing that comes most naturally perhaps, when God's will is clearly something else?  Or how often do I find myself sailing through a whole day as a practical atheist, simply failing to invite His input?  I can't be too hard on Saul because Saul looks an awful lot like the man in the mirror.  On the other hand, I can choose to learn the lessons the Saul had to learn the hard way.  May God have mercy and draw me near to Himself!