1 Samuel 15:12 Early in the morning Samuel got up to meet Saul, but he was told, “Saul has gone to Carmel.  There he set up a monument in his own honor and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal.”

What struck me about this verse or the story of the Bible that this is taken from, is not that King Saul built a monument to himself, or that once again he did not do as the Lord asked. The thing that hit me was that he was at Gilgal again.  Gilgal was where he was crowned King; the Kingship was renewed there; and finally he is rejected at Gilgal because of his disobedience.

Then I remembered that Joshua and the Israelites camped at Gilgal before the Battle of Jericho. It was there the Gibeonites made a treaty with the Israelites. Samuel held court at Gilgal.  A quick glance at my Strong’s shows that Gilgal appears to be a rather important place in the Bible. The name means rolling stone or circle of stone. Perhaps as in “coming full circle”.

Think about this: the Israelites refuse to enter the Promised Land; after a forty-year period, they come full circle; and are given a second chance to enter.

Saul is crowned King.  He doesn’t live up to potential. He is brought back to Gilgal. He disobeys the Word of the Lord.  Goes full circle again, and comes back to Gilgal, only to be unrepentant.

Our God is a God of the Second and Third Chance (and sometimes many more). When reading the Bible, the name, the place or the significance of Gilgal may go unnoticed. Just as multiple chances and opportunities are sometimes overlooked in our own lives. How lucky we are for the times of Gilgal in our lives and the times we are often brought “full circle”.