FILL YOUR HORN AND GO

1 Samuel 16:1 Now the LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go; I am sending you to Jesse the Bethlehemite. For I have provided Myself a king among his sons.

It is important that we set the tone of today’s conversation. This was God speaking to the prophet Samuel about his lack of forward movement following the news that Saul had lost his throne. The question was “how long will you mourn for Saul?”. In other words, God was communicating to Samuel ‘I have moved on, what are you still waiting for?’

It is interesting to see Samuel struggle to move past Saul’ s lost throne and the question is why? When we look at Samuel’s record, he was described as a prophet whose word never fell to the ground. Simply put, his prophecies or instructions had a 100% success rate. This man had anointed Saul as king, so it would have been hard to come to terms with the reality that ‘this action of his had not ended in success’.

It is not really hard to get stuck in a particular moment in time, on a specific or rare event, or specific victory, such that once that point in time passes, it becomes extremely challenging to move past it. This explains why many are stuck singing past victory songs and making reference to previous battles.

God’s charge to Samuel is also to us “fill your horn with oil and go”. Get up, dust yourself and return to your post because you have cried or celebrated enough. New things are happening, don’t stay in the past.