1 Samuel 14:32
“And the people rushed on the spoil, and took sheep, oxen, and calves, and slaughtered them on the ground; and the people ate them with the blood.”

Act according to your conviction. Know your limits. Everyone has an elasticity and to go beyond your limit, without grace, is to expose yourself to an uncertain future. There are times you may be forced by others to go beyond what you are convinced is your limit, but be careful not to accept this stretch, without conviction. Always ensure your mind is in alignment with your body.

If pushed to act without inner conviction, a person may endure for a season, but his unconvinced mind will refuse to travel the journey with him. When the body is forced to do something without the mind’s consent, at the slightest possible opportunity, the mind will rebel and push back in the opposite direction, and with greater intensity than expected.

In the context of today’s passage, once the official time of fasting was over, the people did something so strange that it was hard to imagine. They slaughtered the spoils they found and started eating uncooked meat with blood in it. They had been forced to fast without their consent, and they had obliged, but once the fast was over, their unconvinced mind entered full rebellion, and they became uncontrollable.

It’s good to stretch yourself but do it willingly and with purpose. Don’t just do things because someone else is doing it or because someone asks you to do it. If you are convinced and you take action based on deep mind conviction, you will live a balanced and controlled life. Your mind will support all that you do. If you do things just to please others, your mind will not support you and may actually surprise you when you least expect it.

In the same vein, if you are a leader of some sort, be careful not to push people into doing things without getting them to the point of conviction first. My mentor once to me, “Aim for conviction and not conformity.” He explained that most people can conform (or pretend conformity) without conviction, but this will be short-lived and will break down at the earliest sign of freedom.

Challenge people to live out their personal convictions, without duress. Let people know why they are expected to do what they are told to do and help them buy into the vision. Only the convinced MIND will continue in any given direction.