Leaders that lead

Brief Reflections on 1 Samuel 11

Sometimes people get gripped by fear and they literally don’t know what to do. What they need is a leader. While there are actually many people around to be a leader – someone needs to step up. This is what we see happening in 1 Samuel 11 (Read it here).

In Chapter 10 of 1^st Samuel Saul becomes king. Chapter 10 ends with Saul going home with some “Valiant men” going with him. And then it tells us that some “scoundrels” doubted that Saul can save them. The last line of Chapter 10 is curious: “But Saul kept silent.” In previous chapters about Saul he didn’t look very impressive. He wandered around trying to find lost donkeys. He didn’t know much about the prophet that was leading his people. When he was appointed to King he hid in the baggage area. And now he is mocked and is silent.

Chapter 11 begins with the horrifying challenge of an invader in a city in Israel. This invader threatens to gouge out the right eye of every citizen in this city. The city sends out a call to the cities of Israel asking for help. The response? They wept. They didn’t rise up and say “how dare they attack us.” They didn’t even form a committee to discuss the problem and find a resolution. They just wept. So paralyzed by the events surrounding them that they didn’t do a thing.

Then we are told that Saul comes into the city, walking behind his Oxen (apparently the king is doing yard work). Now, as I’m reading this story I’m not very hopeful. This Saul guy really has not been very impressive. I expect him to say something like “I found my oxen.”

But Saul steps up! He inquires about the problem and then he takes actions and organizes the people. And they move out to a quick and easy victory. The people could do it, but they just needed someone to say let’s go. The story doesn’t tell us that Saul was a great fighter that endured much pain in leading the people into battle (That’s how Mel Gibson would have told it in a movie). Instead Saul organized the people and led them to a victory.

My college group use to sell Christmas trees as a fundraiser. I remember being there as the trees were being delivered. We had a lot of trees and the truck driver was in a hurry to get them off his truck. So we unloaded them and just piled them by the truck. The truck drove off and there was a crew of us staring at all the trees. We began talking about what should be done but nothing was happening. But then the leader showed up (he actually wasn’t in charge, he just drove up and saw the mess). He immediately started telling us what to do and we went to work. We did what we already thought might work – but we weren’t doing anything. But a leader got us moving and in short time the pile of a mess was organized. That was one of my first lessons in seeing a leader lead by leading!

Too often we have people and leaders who are immobilized by fear: school is too difficult, I might not know what to say, I’m not the right person, my life is busy and I can’t do anything else, the Christmas tree pile is too high. These people aren’t leaders. They are too busy (or think they are too busy) or too fearful to step up and lead.

But a leader steps in and takes action. A leader makes things happen. Saul has not been an impressive leader, at least not yet, but he steps up and makes a difference.

But I left one important fact from the passage out. Look at verse 6. The spirit of the Lord came on Saul with power. Saul didn’t just decide to become a leader, but the spirit filled him and made him respond as a leader. A Spirit filled leader is the one who is led by God to step in and make a difference. The Spirit filled leader is guided by the Spirit as he leads the people.

We need leaders who don’t get overwhelmed by what is happening around them or by what might happen. We need leaders who rely of the Spirit of God and who are willing to step in and make things happen. To step up. To lead us.