DEVOTION: What Saul Saw
By Tony Beckett and Woodrow Kroll
Key Verse: 1 Samuel 28:6-7
A person can get a bit tongue-tied trying to tell what happened in 1 Samuel 28.

Saul saw a seer because of what he had seen. When Saul saw what he saw, he sought a seer to see what the seer would say about what he saw.

That may seem like a ridiculous set of sentences when you are reading the Bible and having devotions, but they make a point. What Saul did was ridiculous, a mistake we should not make either.
The bottom line is that Saul was living by sight, not by faith. "When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was afraid; terror filled his heart" (28:5). His first response was to pray, but God did not answer. His next response shows that he was not seeking God as much as he was looking for help, no matter where it came from. "Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her," he said (v. 7). It wasn't the first time that Saul's impatience got him into trouble. In 1 Samuel 13:11-12, he was rebuked by Samuel. His defense was, "When I saw . . . I thought." Living by sight was a pattern with Saul. Living by faith was not. Yet living by faith is blessed by God. Living by sight is not.
How do you live? When God does not seem to answer quick enough for you, it is tempting to decide on the basis of what you see. Don't do it. Don't be like Saul, who let what he saw decide what he would do. Going to God should not be your last resort but your first. Seek Him and stay away from those whose advice is not from His Word.

Nothing is too great and nothing is too small
to commit into the hands of the Lord. -- Arthur W. Pink