Know Your Identity - Samuel

All the elders of Israel met at Ramah to discuss the matter with Samuel. . . . They told him,...“Give us a king to judge us like all the other nations have.”

1 Samuel 8:4-5

In his book The Mask behind the Mask: A Life of Peter Sellers, biographer Peter Evans reports that the comedic actor played so many roles that he sometimes lost his own identity. When a fan approached Sellers one day and asked him, “Are you Peter Sellers?” he tersely answered, “Not today,” and walked on.

During the time of Samuel, Israel’s high-ranking political and religious leaders somehow lost their identities.

God wanted Israel to be different from any other kingdom on earth, and he wanted his chosen leaders to instruct the people in his ways. Still, Israel’s elders clamored for Samuel to give them a human king so that they could fit in with the pagan nations around them.

When God responded to Samuel’s announcement that the elders of Israel wanted a king, he sounded like a brokenhearted father: “It is me they are rejecting, not you. They don’t want me to be their king any longer. . . . Do as they ask, but solemnly warn them about the way a king will reign over them” (1 Samuel 8:7-9).

Samuel did as God had told him. He warned the people of the consequences of rejecting their true King, but it made no difference. Israel’s elders had convinced the people that they needed a human king. Consequently, Israel became “like all the other nations,” relying on a flesh-and-blood king rather than on the King of kings.

When Israel’s elders looked at the nations around them, they lost sight of their own identity. They forgot that God was their King and that they were his children. Things would never be the same for the nation.

They never are when you lose sight of your real King.

Who is your king? Whom do you trust to guide and lead you in every area of your life? If God is your King, you have firmly established your identity as a child of the King of kings.