1 Chronicles 10:8-14: in context

After Saul dies on Mount Gilboa and the men of Jabesh recover his body, the Chronicler pauses to sum up his life in a single, sobering verdict. So Saul died for his unfaithfulness which he committed against the LORD, because he did not keep the word of the LORD, and also because he consulted a medium for guidance, and did not inquire of the LORD. A whole reign, a whole life, is summarized here in a verdict: a life that turned from God, did not keep his word, and sought guidance from false sources rather than from him.

There is something arresting about seeing a life summed up in a sentence. Saul had reigned for years; his life had been full of events, victories, and failures. And here it is reduced to a verdict: he died for his unfaithfulness, because he did not keep God's word and did not seek him. The many details of his reign are gathered into a single summary, and the summary is not flattering. What Saul's life amounted to, in the end, was unfaithfulness, a turning from God. This is what his life was finally judged to be. This confronts us with the sobering reality that a life is finally summed up. Our lives, too, full of events and details as they are, will one day be summed up, seen whole, judged in their entirety. It is appointed for man to die once, Scripture says, and after this, judgment. And the question this raises is what the verdict on our own life will be. Will it be, like Saul's, a verdict of unfaithfulness, a life that turned from God, did not keep his word, sought other sources than him? Or will it be a verdict of faithfulness, a life spent seeking and serving God? The details of our days are accumulating toward a summary, and it is worth asking what that summary will be. This is not meant to produce despair but to focus us. Saul's tragic verdict warns us to live so that our own life's summary is different, marked by faithfulness rather than unfaithfulness, by seeking God rather than turning from him. The conclusion of the whole matter, the Preacher says, is this: fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. A life aimed at this will be summed up differently from Saul's. This calls us to consider the direction and end of our lives now, while they are being lived. Saul's life was summed up as unfaithfulness, a turning from God; and the sobering verdict on him invites us to examine the direction of our own lives, and to live so that we are found faithful, keeping God's word and seeking him, that the summary of our life might be one of faithfulness rather than the tragic verdict that closed the life of Saul.

As I consider that Saul's whole life was summed up in a sobering verdict of unfaithfulness, a life that turned from God, did not keep his word, and sought other sources than him, can I let it move me to examine the direction of my own life now, which is accumulating toward its own summary, and to live so that I am found faithful, keeping God's word and seeking him, that the verdict on my life might be one of faithfulness rather than the tragic summary that closed Saul's?