Twisted

By: Monique Smith

(Trip Lee has a song entitled “Twisted” and it’s pretty dope. Peep it folks. However, the message in the song is not directly related to the message of this devotional.)

Have you ever gotten directions from someone and you firmly believed that you followed them correctly, but ultimately got lost? Were you slightly baffled when you checked by with them to clarify that you had followed the directions to a tee, but found out you actually overlooked a few steps? Well, in 1 Samuel 15, Saul feels your pain. In short, God commanded Saul to annihilate the Amalekites because of the way they treated the Israelites. Saul was commanded to destroy EVERYTHING in their city and spare NOTHING. Well, Saul did destroy EVERYTHING…..well…..almost. Except for the best of the sheep, cattle, fatlings, and for that matter, the best of everything else in the city. (I mean, he did follow directions right? He even killed everybody….well almost, except their king). He was pretty sure that God’s direction didn’t include destroying the good stuff. And he only kept the good animals to sacrifice to the Lord later! Welp, unfortunately, when God said destroy EVERYTHING, he meant EVERY-THING! So God was angry at Saul and rejected him as king. Point blank. Just like that. God could care less about some nice animals being sacrificed in his name, when those animals were supposed to be destroyed in the first place.

So in our life, when God tells us to do something, we need to do things EXACTLY how God wants them to be done! I am SO guilty of twisting some of my instructions in with God’s or justifying some actions thinking that God will like it better the way I choose to do it. WRONG. For example, when God tells me to walk up to someone and pray for them, me “going in” and praying for them uber hard from my seat and even fasting for them later, DOES NOT make God proud of me! Going that extra mile and praying so hard and fasting, does not make it any more effective. It actually makes things worst. My disobedience in that simple situation may cause the individual I was supposed to pray for to miss out on their blessing and it could cost me my elevation to the next level or more favor on my job. Who knows?! Whatever it is, I do not want to find out! So folks, from the example in the text, we have to realize that being 100% obedient to God is our ONLY way to success. Anything less is…..well, it’s just that; less. And will cause us to get left.

Prayer: God! Wow! Thank you for your blessings, joy, and peace on this day! We bless you! You are our Lord and King! God, please help us to follow every one of your instructions exactly how you tell us. God, we do want to make you proud of us, but sometimes, it’s a bit scary to do everything you say do. We don’t want to look stupid or get picked on by others. Please Lord teach us the importance of obedience and reveal to us areas where we are overlooking instructions from you! Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you! In Jesus name, Amen!