134 Internal vs. External Displays of Relationship with God
Transcript
"Samuel said to Saul, 'Does the Lord so delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obedience to the command of the Lord? Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission than the fat of rams. For a sin like divination is rebellion, and presumption is the crime of idolatry. Because you have rejected the command of the Lord, he too has rejected you as a ruler.'" You are listening to Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. It's January 19th, 2026, Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time. I'll be providing the reflection for today's episode. My name is Elizabeth and I'm the producer and host of Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. "Samuel said to Saul, 'Does the Lord so delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obedience to the command of the Lord? Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission than the fat of rams for a sin like divination is rebellion and presumption is the crime of idolatry. Because you have rejected the command of the Lord, he too has rejected you as a ruler.'" So here we have God's prophet Samuel, speaking to the first king of Israel, King Saul, and chastising him for disobeying the command of the Lord. Samuel tells Saul that obedience to the command of the Lord is more important than the offerings and sacrifices that Saul is making to him. And this makes me reflect that many of our manager parts, and sometimes our firefighter parts, especially those that might be called a spiritual bypasser or a Catholic or Christian standard bearer, those manager parts in us who try to keep us on the straight and narrow path.
Sometimes they might focus on the external shows of religion, as Saul was focusing on burnt offerings and sacrifices rather than focusing on our internal relationship with the Lord through obedience to his commandments. For the manager parts who are listening right now, if what I'm saying resonates with you, you might have a host of reactions. You might feel like it's necessary to focus on metaphorical offerings and sacrifices, or literal offerings and sacrifices that you perform to be good with your relationship with God. But I want to ask your permission to speak to the exiled parts that you protect. I'm wondering if you might either allow your exiled parts to listen to this message directly, or to filter this message down to them. So to the inner outcasts or the exiled parts who are listening right now in this reading, King Saul is sort of like your protector parts who are protecting you for very good reasons of their own. But Samuel is sort of playing the role of your innermost self, and he is setting the record straight for all the parts in your system. He is speaking to you, the inner outcasts, and he's reminding you that obedience is better than sacrifice. He is instructing you and gently reminding you that we are first called to enter into an obedient relationship with the Lord, which manifests itself in our internal disposition, rather than in the external offerings and sacrifices that may or may not be in accord with the true feelings of our hearts and our internal dispositions.
And so, to you, exiled parts, I would ask, how do you feel about obedience to the Lord? How does submission to the Lord's will feel to you? If you have not had an experience of the Lord, or if you've had an experience that you thought was from the Lord, but actually was not, then the thought of obeying him or submitting to his will probably feels either impossible or just downright not wise. And so I would just invite you to consider these verses in Scripture and to reflect on the role of your internal Sauls, if you have any as manager parts, and to reflect on the role of your internal Samuel, who is metaphorically like your innermost self and reminding you inner outcasts and also all of your parts, that obedience and submission are more important than the burnt offerings and sacrifices. If today's episode resonates with you, you can find similar content at soulsandhearts.com/content. Thanks for joining us and we hope to see you again tomorrow. With that, we'll end with our invocations. Our Lady, our Mother, Untier of Knots, pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
