Be Careful What You Wish For
“Let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we do not give up.”
Galatians 6:9
The world will always have a way that looks easier, faster, and more impressive. Israel found that out the hard way in 1 Samuel 8.
That’s where Luke Reelfs landed Sunday at Love Church. He opened with a story most of us recognize — fifteen years old, a fresh school permit, one rule, and a friend’s house two minutes off the route home. He drove there anyway. His parents called. He lied. He sprinted back to the parking lot. They were already there, circling the empty lot looking for his car.
“I literally felt like a surfboarder watching a shark out for me in the water.”
Small story. Big setup for the question driving the whole message:
“What happens when God clearly outlines what we should do, what we should not do, and we decide to go against the confines of God’s best for us?”
The answer the rest of the message walked through is in 1 Samuel 7 and 8. Israel had a problem worth naming — Samuel was old, his sons were corrupt, and the future of leadership was genuinely uncertain. So the elders did what felt sensible. They asked for a king. Not just any king — “a king like all the other nations have.” Up to that point Israel had never had a human king. They’d had God as their King. Manna from heaven, Red Sea splitting, enemy after enemy defeated. None of it was forgotten — but somewhere along the way, all of it had become regular.
Luke named the move clearly:
“When we stop trusting God’s leadership, we start craving what everyone else has.”
And then the line that probably needs to be tattooed on every leadership team’s wall:
“A legitimate problem can become the doorway to an illegitimate solution.”
The elders weren’t wrong about the problem. They were wrong about the answer. And God’s response — through Samuel — wasn’t no. It was a warning, then a yes. Samuel laid out exactly what a king would cost them: their sons, their daughters, the best of their fields, a tenth of their grain, their freedom. And then they got the king anyway.
“Sometimes God’s judgment is actually letting us have exactly what we asked for.”
The path back, Luke said, is three moves: turn, trust, talk.
Turn. Not from sin in the abstract. From the specific idols crowding out the space God wants to inhabit. Luke leaned on the picture of a hoarder’s room — a heart so full of “I want this, I have to do that, I owe this person, I’m chasing that next thing” that there’s no room left for God to move.
Trust. Even when we don’t see Him moving. Especially when we don’t see Him moving. The elders’ real failure wasn’t asking the wrong question. It was answering it without ever asking Him.
Talk. Which is itself an acronym Luke walked the room through:
T — Turn your attention back to God. What’s been taking His place this week?
A — Ask before you act. Not what does everyone else do — what does He want me to do?
L — Listen through His Word and His Spirit.
K — Keep walking in obedience. Don’t ask for the next step until you’ve taken the last one.
He landed on Galatians 6:9: “Let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we do not give up.”
So what do you do this week?
Where are you wishing for a “king like the other nations have”? Name it. Specifically. The job, the house, the relationship, the platform — name it before God.
What’s the last thing He asked you to be obedient in? Have you actually done it? If not, that’s probably the next step before any new revelation comes.
What does it look like to process your pain in His presence this week instead of outsourcing it to a group chat or a feed?
This message was the kind of teaching that doesn’t fade by Tuesday. Watch the full thing, then come find a seat with us this Sunday — in-person in Omaha or online at lovechurch.org. You belong before you believe.
