A Bad Day

2 Samuel 1:8 “He responded, ‘Who are you?’

“‘I am an Amalekite,’ I told him.

Have you ever had a bad day? I don’t just mean that you were out of milk for cereal, I mean a really bad day. You know, one like King Saul had where he tried to lean on his sword to commit suicide and missed! That’s a really bad day.

Saul’s bad day happened years before this incident, though. Saul was given a simple task: kill all the Amalekites. Kill ‘em all, the people, the livestock, even their hamsters. But Saul knew better than God and kept the king and a bunch of livestock. Saul had disobeyed God, so he could no longer be Israel’s king.

So imagine being Saul. You have tried to kill yourself but messed that up. You are lying on Mount Gilboa, about to be slaughtered by the Philistines, but you Don’t want them to have the satisfaction of killing Israel’s king, so you ask a young man who is running by to finish you off.

In today’s verse we see who kills Saul, an Amalekite! Saul’s past disobedience came back to haunt him.

God offers us free salvation and forgiveness of our sins. Even still, there are times when our actions from the past can catch up with us. Accepting Christ is like taking nails out of wood. The nails are gone, but the scars remain. Our sins are forgiven, but the things we have done to others, and to ourselves, may still have scars. The good news is that as Christians we have access to peace and the guidance of God as we navigate the blowback from things we have done. We still win!

Today’s Readings: 2 Samuel 1; Psalm 140; Matthew 13