Don’t Allow The Molehill Becomes a Mountain -Babatunde Olugboji
The Bible describes in 1Samuel 30 that Amalekites raided the Negev and Ziklag, attacked and burned Ziklag, where David and his men were residing at the time. “When David and his men reached Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. So, David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.” (1Sam. 30: 3-4).
The sad thing about this situation was that the Ziklag event shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
Remember that God had asked King Saul to kill the Amalekites, and destroy them completely? “Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.,” (1 Sam. 15:3). Saul however decided to do things his own way, killed some of them, spared Agag the king of the Amalekites and the best of the rams, claiming that he wanted to use the animals as sacrifice to God!
It was at this point that Samuel made the seminar statement: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has rejected you as king.” (1Sam. 15: 22-23)
If Saul had fully obeyed God, the Ziklag incident wouldn’t have happened because the Amalekites would have been wiped out and would not have had the opportunity to wreck havoc. Even though it wasn’t Saul that personally bore the brunt of the Amalekite’s raid on Ziklag, the people he was leading suffered the consequences of his action. Not a great leader you would agree.
Do you know that there are some things you may be going through, that if you had dealt with them previously, you won’t be going through even worse things now? If you had taken care of it when it was a molehill, it wouldn’t have grown into a mountain.
Even though we have grace (where sin abounded, grace abounded much more (Rom. 5:20), shall we, Apostle Paul asked, continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not… (Rom. 6:1-2a).
For Paul, the idea that anyone might continue in sin that grace may abound is unthinkable. Even though we have a God of second chance, the idea is to strive, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to do what’s pleasing in God’s sight, and that is, obeying his commands.
Our key lesson this week is not to leave undone what we should have done, so as not to allow that which we left undone to undo the blessings of God in our situation.
Imagine if David had not confronted Goliath after the champion of the Philistines harassed the people of God by presenting himself for forty days, morning and evening? (1 Sam. 15:16).
Our prayer this week is simple: God grant me the confidence to confront what I am meant to confront, at the time I am meant to confront it, so as not to take your grace for granted.
Have a great week!
Kingdom Dynamics, a weekly column is written by Dr. Babatunde Olugboji, the President, Kingdom House, a non-profit organization in New Jersey, USA.
