God commands Saul

1 Samuel 15 – Saul is commanded to utterly destroy Amalek. God has his reasons. God gives Saul a very big army. Some do not believe these numbers (200,000 in the NASB) could be true. Those people picture a small group of pastoral Bedouins living the hill country. They do not think the number of people living here could be that large or that stratified. I do.
Saul does not totally obey God. He (and the army) keep the good stuff and the king (why the king?). But he utterly destroys the people and the “worthless stuff”.
I am very uncomfortable with commands. I have all ways had trouble with authority, but the being in authority and being under authority.
When someone commands me to do something, there is a part of me that resists, that chafes. Even if they have every right to command me I do not cheerfully respond.
God has every right to command me. As the Father of Jesus my savior God has every right to tell me what to do and I should quickly do it.
Yet I am much more comfortable with a God that gently leads me through giving me desires and putting needs before me that I want to do. That seems more akin to manipulation than commanding.
I think God does work that way out of his great love and mercy. I am not sure it is best. God does reserve the right to command me, command us. He has every right to command us and we to obey, every right. And yet he also expects us to relate as friends not slaves. Jesus tells his disciples that they are friends because they obey him. That seems incongruous really. I think it means that if our hearts are ready to obey we are free to question and even ask why. Not that God always has to explain. But if in our hearts we are obedient we can ask. A good example is Mary who asks how she can get pregnant with having sex. It is a good and natural question. The angel answers patiently.
Perhaps I am more willing to obey than I realize. Perhaps it is the whispering of the accuser I am listening to. Perhaps all this struggle is a part of the human condition, fallen humanity, “the flesh” as Paul calls it.
I have not even touched on the morality of God calling, no commanding Israel to do genocide. I do not know how I justify it. I still believe God loves. God’s ways are not my ways. I think that has to be enough for me. Sadly I know it is not for others.
I think also God can still call down his judgment on people even before death. We think of God’s judgment coming at death. Sometimes people are so evil they are judged before they die. I think/. To hazard a guess as to specifics would be the role of a prophet. Do prophets still exist today? Yet it is God’s right to judge. And I think he still does it today.