The Trouble with a King No One Can See
You are innocently (or maybe not so innocently) sitting in a Maunday Thursday service just minding God’s business when the worship leader gives the congregation a simple instruction:
“Take this time to examine your hearts before the Lord in preparation for communion.”
It’s an instruction you’ve received innumerable times through years of communion. Now in your fifties, you’re not anticipating any lightning bolts. But, God is full of surprises.
As you sit, wondering how long your leader can tolerate silence, you hear a quiet voice within you ask, “Why do you demand from me another king?”
One. Simple. Question. But it brings your soul to its knees before God in that room, in that church basement that smells like a hundred years of coffee and Play-doh. He’s named it. The sin to which you cling.
It’s not out of context for the evening. Earlier, the preacher had instructed the gathered on the meaning of the Passover Seder. He’d walked you through the deliverance of Israel from Egypt all the way to the Promised Land. He’d touched on Israel’s demand for a king – a king like all the other nations. A king people could see.
With all the years of God’s provision and protection behind them that should have been enough (Dayenu), they should be content with Him as their king. But, no. They demanded a king everyone can see.
God told Samuel to give them that for which they’d asked.
It’s not always a good thing when God does that.
Such short memories, you and the Israelites. How quickly they’d forgotten what happened in the wilderness when they whined and complained about subsisting on manna. They cried out for meat and God sent them meat. He vowed they would eat meat until it came out their ears. He flooded them with quail and they ate but it came with sickness, too, and death. The fallout of ingratitude.
You, too, have been demanding a king like everyone else.
For all your life, God has provided for your needs but it comes like manna – just enough and just when you need. You’ve been 
looking around at others. These others have storehouses of manna. They have bank accounts, stock portfolios, long-range financial planners, promised dividends, and IRA’s. And you’ve been thinking, why shouldn’t you get you some of that?
Yes, God has provided. (Dayenu) Yes, God has always heard your prayers. (Dayenu) Yes, you have food, shelter, clothing, and this should be enough. (Dayenu)
But, you have envied the deals others have clearly brokered. You have been looking at their visible kings and thinking, man, I have got to get me one of those.
Now, in the quietness of this silence on Maunday Thursday, you realize how close you came to God answering your prayer and you repent of that foolish prayer and thank Him for giving you opportunity to take it back before He gives you a king like everyone else.
The mercy of conviction.
Jesus is your King and truly, you desire no other. Jesus is your security, your money in the bank, your investment portfolio, your retirement plan, your hope chest, your inheritance. He is like no other.
You sympathize with Israel’s envy of visible kings. It must have been hard to hear the taunts from their enemies. “Show us your king! Bring him out! Where is your fierce leader? Oh, right, he’s invisible, isn’t he? No, no, that’s soooo scary! We’re terrified of your invisible king.”
And when you think of the taunts they would have received from the enemy, you recognized the voice of the evil one, the voice you’ve been hearing in your own thoughts, thoughts you then translated into ungrateful, demanding prayers.
And you are undone before the Lord.
Thank God for mercy. Thank God for Jesus’ death on the cross. Thank God for His resurrection. Thank God that He
has included you in His family through Jesus Christ, the only High King.
It will be hard but you’re no longer going to ask for a visible king, one like everyone else has. By the power of Jesus Christ, you will be content with manna, content with a king so real this world isn’t ready to lay eyes on Him but one day, you and everyone else will see Him again.
No king but King Jesus. This is your Easter prayer of resurrection.
Is Jesus YOUR King? Are you willing to be content with a king like no other? Share this with others in celebration of Resurrection Sunday.
The Trouble with an Invisible King http://t.co/7as144ALGq #Easter #ResurrectionSunday #ThatsMyKing #Jesus #amwriting
— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) April 4, 2015
