{"id":4565,"date":"2023-02-12T21:37:44","date_gmt":"2023-02-13T03:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4565"},"modified":"2023-02-12T21:37:44","modified_gmt":"2023-02-13T03:37:44","slug":"devotional-on-1-samuel-32","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-1-samuel-32\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on 1 Samuel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-dX2hPNsW3gE\/XefuXtaV94I\/AAAAAAABC-Q\/g7n2NC4XiOsmsDbLjhJYDTx8SAAWLqOSACKgBGAsYHg\/s1600\/100_4219.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"901\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2015 &#8211; Castle Rock Campground &#8211; Friendship, WI<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nThe danger of natural attributes<br \/>\n1 Samuel 17: Go.  And God help you!<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve been thinking about why Saul, himself, didn&#8217;t fight Goliath.  After all, Saul is the king, leader of the army.  He&#8217;s never been afraid in previous battles and has a reputation for being a fierce fighter.  Goliath stands over nine feet tall, but Saul towers a head and shoulders above all the other men of Israel.  Yet day after day, he allows his army to cower before Goliath&#8217;s challenge.  I think the last part is the key.  Saul is used to being the biggest.  David isn&#8217;t a big man in the first place, but Saul is. In fact, and I\u2019m just guessing here, it may be that Saul has never in his adult life seen another human being who&#8217;s taller than himself.  Think of the psychological impact of that.  Saul sees in Goliath not only a man bigger than he is, but also a man who&#8217;s clearly more skilled at hand-to-hand combat.  This frightens Saul in a way that he&#8217;s never been frightened before.  In fact, it has frozen him to the point that he&#8217;s ready to send young David, with all the confidence of his youth, to battle the giant in his stead.  I think that it\u2019s possible for our advantages to become our disadvantages.   Natural attributes can blind us to our own weaknesses.  Gifts can hinder the development of skills.  For instance, a person who\u2019s naturally a good speaker or singer may rely on that gift, but ultimately will be less useful to God than a person who had to early on learn to rely on God if they were to effectively minister.  Sooner or later life sends us a Goliath, a circumstance in which our natural gifts, as great as they are, aren&#8217;t enough.  Even gifted people must learn to rely on God, or they risk becoming Saul, hiding in his tent instead of battling Goliath.<br \/>\nTake Away: Ultimately, we all come to the end of ourselves so it\u2019s better to early on learn to rely on him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The danger of natural attributes 1 Samuel 17: Go. And God help you! I&#8217;ve been thinking about why Saul, himself, didn&#8217;t fight Goliath. After all, Saul is the king, leader of the army. He&#8217;s never been afraid in previous battles and has a reputation for being a fierce fighter. Goliath stands over nine feet tall, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1473,7],"tags":[114,397,508,651,654,1060],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4565"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4565"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14262,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4565\/revisions\/14262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}