Hey ya’ll! Thanks for continuing to follow along. Today I am sharing one of my favorite taco side dishes. I also use this rice to make burritos and it is SO good and pretty simple. This is what you need:
2 cups jasmine rice
3 cups water
salt to taste (about 1 tsp)
3 limes
1 handful of fresh chopped cilantro (feel free to do less or more depending on your taste for cilantro)
1 tbs oil
Start by putting your oil in a pot and adding the rice over medium heat. Let that cook for 3-5 minutes stirring occasionally. While that is cooking get your water and zest the three limes into the water. After a few minutes pour the water in with the rice and bring it to a boil. Then reduce the heat to low, put the lid on, let it cook for 15 minutes untouched. When it is finished, immediately add the juice of the three limes and the handful of cilantro (chopped finely) and stir. It is ready to eat!
Now for what the Lord has been teaching me recently. I have been reading through 1st Samuel for the last week or two and I feel like the theme of “obedience” keeps showing up over and over. If you’ve never read that book of the Bible, I strongly encourage you to do so. However, I am going to point out some highlights from the first 17 chapters.
Let’s start in chapter 1 with how the whole story began. There was a woman named Hannah whose womb had been closed by the Lord. In her distress she cried out to God and told the Lord if he would give her a child, she would give the child back to Him. God showed her kindness and she gave birth to a son named Samuel. When he was weaned, she took him back to the temple and gave him to the Lord like she promised. From there he grew and became one of the greatest prophets of the old testament. He doesn’t have any faults recorded against him. Throughout his life, we see him being obedient to God and what God tells him to do. He is our example of someone who IS obedient to the Lord.
The person in this book I want to focus on is Saul, the one who was NOT obedient to God. So the story continues and Samuel becomes the priest and Israel begs for a king. Although Samuel warns against it, he follows God’s lead and anoints Saul to be King of Israel. In the beginning, Saul had Gods favor as he was being obedient to the word of the Lord. We see in the chapters leading up to chapter 15 that Saul is consistently becoming disobedient to what the Lord tells him to do through Samuel. In chapter 15: 2-3 Samuel gives Saul a message from the Lord “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’ “
So Saul goes and attacks BUT he brings back king Agag of the Amalekites along with the best of the sheep and cattle and fat calves and lambs. The Bible says in the NIV version of verse 9 “everything that was good.” So we see Saul thinking that he knows better than God. He destroyed most of the stuff but kept what was “good” after being told to destroy EVERYTHING. Let’s skip to verse 10-11 it says “Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel: I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.” Samuel was angry, and he cried out to the Lord all that night.”
Did you catch that? The lord regretted ever making Saul king because of his disobedience. That one sentence is enough to show us how important it is to God that we are obedient to what he tells us. However, lets continue and look down at verses 20-23, these are the verses that cause me to pause and consider how serious God is about obedience. It says “But I did obey the Lord Saul said. I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal. But Samuel replied: Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king.”
Saul thought he knew better than God. If we aren’t careful and constantly searching our hearts, we might find that we do the same thing. How many times have you felt God speak to you and you made an excuse as to why that won’t work? How often do we use our own “wisdom” to tell God why his plan isn’t going to work for us? If you pay attention to the text it references arrogance because it is arrogant to believe that we know better for ourselves than God. It actually says arrogance like the evil of idolatry. So being arrogant is as evil as idolatry (putting something else above God…aka our own thoughts/wisdom). The story continues on and God searches for a man after his own heart. Someone who is humble and willing to obey. That’s where David comes on the scene. Chapter 17 is the famous story about David and Goliath. A young boy who is obedient and confident in the Lord and is able to defeat a giant who had terrorized Israel. A direct opposite of Saul who has consistently shown that he doesn’t trust God. Isn’t that why obedience is so important? It ultimately shows that we trust God and that he knows what is best for us even when it feels hard in the moment. So my question for all of us is what has God laid on our hearts that we aren’t being obedient to? I know mine, I hope this blog provokes you to consider yours. Love ya’ll!