For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from being king. - 1 Samuel 15 :23 NKJV.

As I described previously, I was all tied down with wires and tubes. A surgeon had visited and installed an IV portal in my chest; all seemed to be going well until about 11:00 P.M. when I woke up, or semi woke up, needing to go to the bathroom. Thinking I was at home, I got out of bed (With my wife telling me not to.) and headed for where I thought the bathroom was located. I didn't make it there, because of all the wires and tubes, and pulled out my portal. As a result, it took another couple of hours to get everything cleaned up and I no longer had a portal. So, they brought in some people from the lab to try to find a vein but they seemed to have great problems finding one. It was probably 3:00 A.M. before things calmed down. Dr. Zuerker said the next day that I had made an “F” in Portal Management. My wife thought that it was the sleep medication along with the pain medication that brought it all about. Maybe it was just that I was in a strange place and very sick.

The next day about noon, the surgeon came back and reinstalled the portal on the opposite side of my chest. This time she put in some extra stitches and went deeper. I paid for that when they took the stitches and the portal out on the last day of my hospitalization. Because of my “F” in Portal Management, it was over 12 hours before they could resume the IV s at the same level as previous. It most likely caused an additional 12 hours of hospitalization, and as I already mentioned more pain.

That is exactly what happens to us when we rebel against our God. Our rebellion causes us pain, and causes a delay in God’s blessings, and in God’s will being brought about in our lives. It has been said that, “sin will keep you longer than you want to stay, sin, will take farther than you want to go and it will cost you more than you want to pay.”

King Saul was disobedient in doing what God wanted him to do. He was to wait for the prophet Samuel to come and make an offering before taking on the enemy. But Saul got tired of waiting and made the offering himself. It was a very costly mistake, which resulted in the kingdom, being wrenched away from Saul and given to David. This rebellious act caused much pain to Saul, his family, and those loyal to him. It also caused a delay in the kingdom being brought about in its ultimate manifestation.

We have choices, and have been given a free will. We can choose, as Adam and Eve and King Saul chose to do, in doing what we know God does not want us to do. We have that choice. We can pull it all out. But it will cost us. If we rebel against God by doing what we want to do, instead of what God wants us to do, it will increase the misery quotient of our lives. Our rebellion will make the night longer. Our rebellion will hurt other people besides ourselves, usually those we love the most.

Before you pull it all out in rebellion against God, it might be a good idea to count the cost.