To Heed Is Better Than The Fat Of Rams
August 17, 2026
“1 Samuel 15:22 So Samuel said: “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.””
Reflection
17th August 2026 I sit in quiet solitude this morning, contemplating if I had deluded myself into a state of seeming spirituality, without any corresponding emotional maturity. Have I had any social insecurities, any subconscious desire to be validated by the people in my life? Have I disobeyed God, because I was afraid to offend people? Have I tried to justify my actions by assuming that God will forgive, because He is compassionate and slow to anger? The Holy Spirit in me has convicted me to answer yes to these questions. In many ways, I was no different from Saul, when I was in leadership positions appointed by God. I thought I was doing my best at work, but I was not doing what God had intended for me. I had studied Scripture and had facilitated bible studies at home for the past twenty-five years, but that had given me a false sense of walking closely with God, when, in fact, I had been walking my own path. Yet, God has indeed been compassionate and slow to anger. He has sent saints (followers of Christ) to counsel me and to encourage me. He has directed my steps back to His path. He has continued to guide me with His Word, reminding me that it is the sword of the Spirit, which will destroy the falsehoods that I have been believing. Most of all, God has been forgiving in my repentance. It may seem like I have lost my ‘promised land’, but that was never God’s plan to begin with. His ways are higher than my ways and His plans higher than mine. He has greater things in store for me and I must yield to His heart and to His will.
Application
From the book, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, by Peter Scazzero: Prayerfully ask God to reveal to me where I have symptoms of emotionally unhealthy spirituality. 1. Using God to run from God — Using prayer, ministry, Scripture, or other spiritual activity to avoid areas of your life that God may actually be asking you to confront. 2. Ignoring anger, sadness, and fear — Treating difficult emotions as unspiritual rather than acknowledging them honestly and discerning what they reveal. 3. Dying to the wrong things — Confusing Christian self-denial with suppressing healthy desires, personality, pleasure, or individuality, while leaving defensiveness, pride, or self-protection untouched. 4.Denying the past’s impact on the present — Assuming that becoming a Christian means your family history, wounds, relational patterns, and formative experiences no longer affect you. 5. Dividing life into “secular” and “sacred” compartments — Behaving one way in explicitly Christian contexts while allowing different values to govern work, relationships, money, recreation, or private life. 6. Doing for God instead of being with God — Becoming so occupied with serving, leading, volunteering, or accomplishing things for God that communion with God becomes secondary. 7. Spiritualizing away conflict — Avoiding difficult conversations in the name of peace, kindness, forgiveness, or being “Christlike,” rather than addressing conflict truthfully and constructively. 8. Covering over brokenness, weakness, and failure — Maintaining an image of spiritual competence instead of admitting vulnerability, limitations, mistakes, doubts, and need. 9. Living without limits — Acting as though faithful Christians should always be available, productive, sacrificial, or capable of doing more, rather than accepting human limits as part of how God created us. 10. Judging other people’s spiritual journey — Becoming preoccupied with correcting, evaluating, comparing, or fixing other people rather than attending humbly to one's own spiritual formation.
Dearest Abba Father, forgive me for being a prodigal son, who has disobeyed You and strayed from Your path. I have let my insecurities rule my heart. I have been defensive of my decisions and actions, when it would have been better for me to obey and heed Your instruction. Speak, O LORD, and I will listen. I ask the Holy Spirit to open my eyes that I may see how great, how wide and how deep Your love is for me. I am satisfied by You alone. Search me, O God, and reveal any wickedness in me, that I may surrender totally to You. Not my will, but Yours be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Thank You for receiving me back into Your house with Your open arms. I thank You in Jesus’ name. Amen.