Pleased

“for the LORD will not abandon His people on account of His great name, because the LORD has been pleased to make you a people for Himself.”  1 Samuel 12:22

Pleased –  Watch out!  God is at work!  Willing.  Choosing.  Determining.  This is not about saying the magic word.  It’s not about being nice and polite.  It’s about power; power of will, power of choice and power in action.  Ya’al is a word that expresses the voluntary self-determination of a freely acting agent. 

How appropriate it is that ya’al is the verb used to express God’s decision to create a special people for Him.  The word shouts to us.  This is not random.  This is not a serendipitous accident.  God was willing.  God chose.  And God acts to bring it about.  It is God’s fervent desire and deliberate intention to make us into His people. 

Now I ask you, if God is at work in this project, if it is His desire, plan and production, do you think there is anything or anyone who can stand in the way?  Who would you put up against the God of all creation who could thwart His will? 

We need to see this word in the context of this event.  How much more powerful it is when we realize that God’s willingness, choice and execution occur in spite of Israel’s incredible and horrible sin!  Even Israel’s direct defiance and disobedience does not stand in God’s way.  Not only will God never abandon His people, He will not let their denial of His right to authority deter Him from accomplishing His purposes.  And in the distance we can hear that voice in the garden saying, “Thy will be done”.  Hallelujah!  There was one among us who understood the eternal depths of this Hebrew word.  “Thy will will be done.”

Count yourselves blessed among all creatures.  God is not deterred from His purposes.  His will is going to be done.  And you and I are part of those purposes.  You and I have been set free from the crushing burden of creating our own destinies.  God is at work here.  We are caught up in something far beyond our control.  His will is coming to pass.  And He is pleased to do it.

One of the greatest promises of history is proclaimed in the midst of one of history’s greatest tragedies.  God’s people turn away.  But God does not.  He goes right ahead with His plan to make a people of His own.  God takes our worst and fashions it into a triumph of His grace and glory.  Is that the story of your life?  Do you know that you are captured into His purposes?  Are you an expression of ya’al?