1 Sam 13:15-23 Experiencing culture shock in a foreign country can put a strain on relationships. My Mum once told me that when we were living in India as a family, she observed several marriages of other Hungarians there that…

1 Sam 13:8-14 The passage about Saul’s downfall is a disconcerting one. What exactly went wrong? When Saul was anointed, he was told to wait for seven days until Samuel came to offer sacrifices and showed him what to do…

1 Sam 13:1-7 We have all experienced times in our lives when we struggled to hear from God, our prayers seemed to bounce back from the ceiling and there was no particular sign that the Lord was working on our…

1 Sam 12:19-25 Who of us doesn’t wonder about certain forks in the road where we chose a path that led to regrettable consequences? It is particularly sad if we had given in to sin whether it was lack of…

1 Sam 12:1-18 I got my first glasses when I was about eleven or twelve and I still remember my sense of awe that suddenly I could read the board in class without squinting and all those blurry shapes on…

1 Sam 11:1-13 A friend of mine had a very critical mother who constantly censured her for the way she dressed, talked, and acted. Although she understood as an adult that her mother’s reproaches arose out of a desire to…

1 Sam 10:17-27 Those who suffer from feelings of insecurity know how debilitating these can be. Irrespective of people’s real abilities, the sense of inadequacy can cause them to freeze or make self-defeating choices that confirm their impression of failure…

1 Sam 10:1-16 I still vividly remember the news about a gifted pastor of a high-profile church, who left his wife and moved in with his secretary. The shock rocked Christians who knew the pastor and listened to his faithful,…

1 Sam 9:15-27 Given the question marks around Saul, it is troubling that God deliberately chose him as Israel’s first king (1 Sam 9:16-17). Could He not see the weaknesses in Saul’s character (I would imagine He could and did)…

1 Sam 9:1-14 A Christian woman I know married in her fifties but a few years after the wedding, she realised that her relationship was in trouble. Talking to a friend of mine she admitted that the warning signs were…