Saul’s Modesty

Saul had a real problem with accountability.

Early on, his modesty sounds admirable. “Am not I a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin?” he asks the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 9:21). And when Samuel announces him as the new king of Israel, the people have to go fetch him because he is hiding among the luggage (1 Samuel 10:21-23).

President Dallin H. Oaks has taught that our strengths can become our downfall. In Saul’s case, that principle is easy to see. His self-consciousness prevented him from following God with integrity. The first time he fails to follow instructions from Samuel, he explains, “Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that thou camest not within the days appointed, … I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering” (1 Samuel 13:11-12). The second time, he articulats his motivations even more clearly: “I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice” (1 Samuel 15:24). The bashful young man became an ineffective leader because his anxiety overruled his sense of accountability.

Near the beginning of the Book of Mormon, Lehi shares a dream with his family. One part of the dream involves overcoming social pressure. As Lehi and some family members stand at a tree eating fruit which represents the love of God, they see people in a “great and spacious building” (1 Nephi 8:26), pointing at them and mocking them. Lehi’s son, Nephi, relates, “They did point the finger of scorn at me and those that were partaking of the fruit also; but we heeded them not.” Then, he adds this observation from his father: “For as many as heeded them, had fallen away” (1 Nephi 8:33-34). Saul could have used that lesson from Lehi. Don’t compromise your principles to appease others who may not share your values. Don’t let them disrupt your divinely appointed missions.

Today, I will put God first in my life. I will not allow my fear of disapproval to degrade my performance of my duty to Him.