1 Samuel 9:1-2 (NKJV)
\u201cThere was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Bechorath, the son of Aphiah, a Benjamite, a mighty man of power. And he had a choice and handsome son whose name was Saul. There was not a more handsome person than he among the children of Israel. From his shoulders upward he was taller than any of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How do men describe you? If people were to use one phrase to describe you, what would they use or what would they say? That\u2019s a question I keep asking myself. What do people see in me after they have interacted with me for a while? What people see in you has a lot to do with what you consider your priorities, because, consciously or unconsciously, you become the image of what is your priority. How you see yourself on the inside will slowly but surely shape the way you form. As the Bible says, \u201cAs a man thinks in his heart, so he becomes.\u201d We, therefore, need to be conscious of what our inner reflections are about ourselves, as these shape who we become and how people see us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the passage under study, while Kish was described as, \u201ca mighty man of power,\u201d Saul was described as, \u201ca handsome son, there was not a more handsome person than he.\u201d See the difference in the Biblical definition of a father and a son. The father is a man of power \u2013 power with God and power with man. A man of authority and influence, and respect \u2013 and he was described this way, most likely, because he had proved himself through the expression of power. Whenever people met him, they knew they had met a man of authority. Just like electricity, inherent in power is the ability to make things happen, and you don\u2019t touch electricity without knowing you touched power. Power brings about change. Power moves things. Power influences. A man of power is able to remove obstacles (or add them), and he is not intimidated by any opposition. But what does a handsome man or beautiful woman have to offer our generation? We have lots of handsome men who are surrounded by needy people, but their handsomeness cannot add value to them, or solve their problems. To be handsome or beautiful is not a crime, but if that is all people remember about you, then that is a crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are called to live in such a way that our lives describe who we are. We are called to live in such a way that our influence manifests positive values on those around us. We need to examine what our innermost life priorities are, as these will shape our thinking and inadvertently make us conform to the image of our thoughts. Let’s step away from peripheral ambitions that have no long-term positive influence on society. Let\u2019s reflect on who we want to be remembered as, and chase that vision. And let\u2019s look at the positive things in the generation before us, and seek to inherit their values and strength of character. Yes, Saul eventually became king of Israel and operated great power, but could his ultimate failure come from the lack of personal power of character?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1 Samuel 9:1-2 (NKJV)\u201cThere was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Bechorath, the son of Aphiah, a Benjamite, a mighty man of power. And he had a choice and handsome son whose name was Saul. There was not a more handsome person […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-reflections-from-1st-samuel"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/1-Samuel-Cover.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6603,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6601\/revisions\/6603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}