Too Big For Your Boots

Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king over Israel. 1 Samuel 15:17

When King Saul disobeyed God, the prophet Samuel told him, ‘When you were little in your own eyes…did not the Lord anoint you King over Israel?…Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord?’ (vv. 17-19). There’s a sobering lesson here. The most dangerous moment in your life is when you think you can succeed without God. When you get a few wins under your belt, it’s easy to forget Who’s responsible for your success. Where once you would have consulted God, you now launch out on your own and ask Him to add His blessing to your decisions. You say, ‘But things are going pretty well for me these days.’ Then remember Who made your success possible, and live with gratitude and dependence on God! Looking back on how God blessed Israel, the Psalmist records, ‘Then they believed His words; they sang His praise. [But] they soon forgot His works; they did not wait for His counsel’ (Psalms 106:12-13). Our capacity for forgetfulness is staggering. The old-timers used to tie a string around their finger to remind them of something they might easily forget. Maybe you need to wear a string on your finger to remind you that God is the secret, the source of all your blessings. Frustrated by how long he had to wait in line to renew his driver’s license, the CEO of a big plumbing company asked his wife, ‘Don’t they know who I am?’ She responded, ‘Yes, you’re a plumber’s son who got lucky.’ The word for today is: stay humble, and don’t get too big for your boots!

Prayer
Heavenly Father, forgive me when I think that success is something that I caused – and forget that it was YOU all the time that blessed me and helped me. In Jesus’ Name, Amen