Love Potion

And the LORD regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel. 1 Samuel 15:35

My wife and I watched a movie recently in which one of the main characters fell under the spell of a love potion. Hopelessly enchanted, he opined absurdly about his undying love for this girl whose name he didn’t even know. It was an amusing scene, but it got me to thinking about love and coercion. If someone could force you to love them, then it isn’t actually love, is it? Love longs to be loved in return, but for love to be real, that love must be freely given. If someone had no choice but to love – if they were bewitched by a potion for instance – then it wouldn’t truly be love. Love requires the existence of free will.

This is the painful lesson of today’s passage in which God appears to admit a mistake. In the story, God acquiesced to the Israelite’s demand for a king, anointing Saul. Saul failed to follow God however, following himself instead. In Saul’s rebellion, God regretted making him king in the first place. Being God though, how can he have regrets? Didn’t he know how it would all turn out? How can a perfect God make mistakes?

The story reveals what has always appeared to me to be the flaw in God’s plan. Here’s what I mean – God made man to live in a loving relationship with him, but then he gave him choice. Man could choose to love God or love himself. We have all, at one time or another, failed in our purpose, choosing to love ourselves above God. This is the source of God’s regret in today’s passage. He regrets the pain we cause ourselves and the pain we cause him in going our own way. Why then has he allowed us free will? Because he loves us and longs that we love him in return. What appears to me to be a mistake is the price that God paid for love. What appears to be a flaw isn’t’ a flaw at all. Free will is simply the price of love.

I imagine the world would be far less chaotic if God had just made us all robots – helpless but to do his will. Such a world would be loveless though. That’s not the world wanted. God loves us and he longs that we love him back. So, he gave us the ability to love and follow him or to love and follow ourselves. Daily, if we desire the lives for which we were created, we must seek a loving relationship with him. When we fail to do so, we grieve him, and we grieve ourselves.