The prophet Samuel

Last month, somewhere in the middle of it, I went to some Bible study in O'Fallon with my friend Peter. The subject of the prophet Samuel came up, when God sent Samuel to the house of Jesse to anoint the new king. Samuel looked at Eliab and incorrectly assumed that he was God's choice. So Peter said, "Boy, your parents sure screwed up when they named you." To which I replied, "At least I didn't deny Christ three times before the rooster crowed."

Granted, the prophet Samuel wasn't perfect. But I really like the guy. He was somebody who would tell people what they needed to hear, even if it was bad news. As a young child, his mom tells him it's time for him to move out of the house. He has to live with some old, overweight priest named Eli. Apparently Eli wasn't the best father in the world, so God had Samuel tell him his sons were going to be killed.

Decades passed and Samuel became an old man. The people wanted a king. Samuel told them they were making the biggest mistake of there lives, but they wouldn't listen.

Then, the first king Saul turned out (surprise, surprise) to be a bad king. So Samuel told him that Saul was going to lose his position, which Saul wasn't particularly thrilled to hear.

Then, after Samuel already passed on, Saul called Samuel up from the dead. Samuel wasn't real happy about that and told him that tomorrow he and his sons would be dead for being such a bad king.