God’s will cannot fail (1 Sam 23:15-29)
1 Sam 23:15-29 After four years of theological study in the UK (undergrad and masters), I was running out of financial support. What money I had saved went into previous years of study and my home church was not interested…
How we can overcome self-absorption (1 Sam 23:1-14)
1 Sam 23:1-14 One of the side-effects of suffering, whether it is ongoing illness and pain, a loss of a loved one or injustice and hurt, is that what is happening to us can become all-consuming. There is no emotional…
The Way through Suffering (1 Samuel 22)
1 Sam 22:1-23 In my previous post (The Way Out of Playing the Victim), we have seen Saul’s complaints, his finger pointing, while he laid the blame for his difficulties on others. In the process, he greatly deceived himself and…
The way out of playing the victim (1 Samuel 22)
1 Sam 22:1-23 I was working on reception duty at a Christian youth hostel in Haifa, Israel, when three tourists walked in. ‘Don’t tell her we have any money’, muttered one to the other in Hungarian. They missed their cruise…
God’s patient grace (1 Samuel 21)
1 Sam 21:1-15 How is it that when it comes to judging someone’s motivation whom we dislike, we see it in the worst possible light, but when it comes to our own, we attribute the best intentions to ourselves? Motivation…
What it takes to be loyal to God (1 Sam 20:24-42)
1 Sam 20:24-42 After a concert with a group from her church, a Christian classmate was walking home the same way as another girl who had recently joined her church. The girl, however, seemed a little confused and did not…
How to acknowledge our rightful king? (1 Sam 20:1-23)
1 Sam 20:1-23 In my gap year, when I was a volunteer in a youth hostel in Israel, I worked together with a girl my age who had come to faith not long before I arrived. She had a lot…
How God works behind the scenes (1 Samuel 19)
1 Sam 19:1-24 In secondary school, I had a teacher who seemed a bit slow on the uptake. After a particular incident, I made a mocking comment about her in the break, which was overheard by another teacher. He gave…
The deadly effects of jealousy and how to cure it (1 Samuel 18)
1 Sam 18:1-30 My father came from a well-to-do family and before World War II, his parents entertained in the grand style and lacked no luxury. Dad told me once that he was so spoilt as a young boy that…
How to resolve the tension in how David met Saul for the first time? (1 Sam 17:55-58)
1 Sam 17:55-58 Careful readers will note a strange discrepancy at the end of the Goliath incident (1 Sam 17:55-58), where Saul is seemingly unaware of David’s identity, even though the latter was introduced to him in the previous chapter.…