Galatians 1:10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.

Whenever I think about pleasing people, I always think of King Saul first. Maybe it is because he told Samuel that he feared the People rather than Obeying God. 

1 Samuel 15:24 Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.

We often pile on Saul because of this and multiple other actions, such as this during his time as king. After all, he disobeyed and had the kingdom stripped from him, was told about his replacement, and spent years attempting to kill him rather than to help train him up. Ultimately, he filed in the role of king and his role as a father. 

Yeah, that sucks, and he was terrible, and I guess as a people pleaser myself, I can relate. I have often feared what people would say and made decisions based on that fear. Usually leading to worse outcomes. Now, I wasn’t in the role of King where my actions impacted hundreds of thousands of people, but enough close to me have been affected enough to do damage. 

Why do I bring this up? I have compassion for Saul while also understanding the root of his people-pleasing. INSECURITY-(uncertainty or anxiety about oneself; lack of confidence)!! Look at what he told Samuel when he told Saul that he was the desire of Israel. 

1 Samuel 9:21 And Saul answered and said, “Am I not a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel, and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? Why then do you speak like this to me?”

Saul belittled himself and his family, not out of humility but out of a lack of confidence in himself. We don’t know enough about Saul to understand why he was so insecure, but the Bible tells us he was from a lineage of Benjamites, including one ancestor who was a mighty man of power. Also, for Saul, there was not a more handsome person than he among the children of Israel. From his shoulders upward, he was taller than any of the people. So he was Tall, Dark, and Handsome (1 Samuel 9:1-2). However, we do know that Saul’s insecurity would lead to poor decision-making that would impact people. 

Maybe Saul did not realize his lineage or how so many other people saw him, but it was very clear that he did not understand how God saw him and had selected Saul to be the anointed King and savior of Israel from the Philistines. Saul had what it took to be a great King, but that was not the case. He is known in the Bible as one of the most insecure kings of all time.

What if Saul knew what we know today, that Jesus Christ the righteous is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world (1 John 2:1-2)? What if he knew that the Lord would say, “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more (Hebrews 8:12).”

Well, maybe that is what we should remember. Maybe knowing that regardless of what we have done, God does not remember because of Jesus, and we have a clean slate because of the blood would help our confidence. 

Next, we’ll look at another Saul, who honestly is quite the opposite of this one.