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Saul's perspective: To sooth him when he is tormented by the evil spirit God's perspective: To prepare David for the task that he has been called to Things that prevent: Our own evil desires, jealousy, hatred. greed and our inability to follow God's commands, therefore our rebellion Things that might make us more teachable: Prayer, reading the word, mediating on His word and spending time in His presence.

Significance of Samuel anointing David: To show that David was God's chosen one. Chosen for the mission that God had set for him. Significance of the Holy Spirit coming down on David: To empower David with Divine help/ whatever he will need to do his God ordained mission How does this explain his success: It shows that when you have the Gift of the Holy Spirit, there's nothing you can't do but it also shows us that when God calls you for a task, He will never leave you alone. Just like when He ascended to heaven, He said that he shall never leave his disciples alone but will leave them with the Holy Spirit. How is it vital for our own success as disciples: It's vital in that It will help us go through any challenges we might face. It will help us in fulfilling our God ordained mission. This really shows me the God that we have. His will shall never take us where His mercy shall never cover us. That's just beautiful. We can do anything through Him that gives us strength.

This story teaches us the importance of listening to God through two characters. Firstly: Saul, who failed to listen to God. With him, we see the "negative" side of what happens when we don't listen to God. We just don't prosper in what we do, much like Saul who's rein as king had ended. Even the disappointment that comes through not following God's commands. He will not turn His back on us but we will be called to account for our disobedience Secondly: Samuel, who listens to God and God made his plans prosper but even better than all that was the deep relationship that Samuel had with God.We all tend to seek that deep meaningful relationship with God and Samuel shows us how and that is by listening carefully to God's voice. I'd like to take it a little bit further than that and say not just listening but also doing. Our instinctive way of discerning is through physical appearance and social stature. We rarely look at the character of the individual. He teaches us to look at what lies within an individual, He teaches us to look at the heart of an individual, "judge" by character. We learn to listen to the Spirit through spending time in God's presence----> reading/mediating on His word, praising Him, spending time in silence just so that He may speak to us and then just praying. The more we spend time in His presence, the more we will learn His language in our lives. Beautiful lesson today.

Rebellion is an ACTIVE and CONSCIOUS choice to disregard/ go against certain laws and established rules. My take on witchcraft is that it "takes matters into your own hands". From what I generally see, it's never used in any good way but rather to change the course of things to suit one's twisted desires. Rebellion like witchcraft is actually turning away from God and deciding that you and do things your own way. In witchcraft, you are acting as though you are God, making things manifest in your own way. Rebellion is also saying you know better so you can do things your way irrespective of the law. Arrogance is having too great a sense of one's own abilities or importance (Oxford dictionary) and you wouldn't rebel if you didn't think that you know better, if you didn't think that your way of doing things is much better, that your way of doing things is the right way. So embedded in rebellion is arrogance. The two go hand in hand. The best thing to do is to go down on your knees, acknowledge what you have done, confess your sin and ask for forgiveness. But the important thing there is (1) Truly mean it and (2) Actually change your ways. For that is the true essence of asking for forgiveness, turning away/cutting ties with what you have done. If we do nothing, that sin follows us. We will be held accountable for it and pay the price. I think that the worst price of not doing anything about it is not spending time with Our Father in heaven, What a powerful lesson learnt.