Every path contains a thousand possibilities.

Hope, joy, peace, ruin, heartache, chaos, redemption, rejection, transformation, decay.

Which possibilities become realities?

Well, that depends largely on who we walk with.

This is a story about the earliest forks on one man's path. It's a story about identity and resolve and the

destiny of a nation. More than anything, it's a story that speaks to the tragic beauty of what

might have been. If only, he'd kept walking with the one who knew the way. I'm Justin Gerhardt. Welcome to Holy Ghost

Stories. The Saul kneeling,

watches the flask rise before him.

Samuel's hand is steady, silhouetted by the rising sun.

Saul tries to quiet his quickened pulse, but to

no avail, this moment will change his life, and there's no convincing his body otherwise.

The prophet's hand tilts and the oil falls, cascading through Saul's hair and across his forehead.

Saul closes his eyes, quiet as a sheep before its shearer.

Samuel's hand and the flask and the oil cast a shadow,

the anointed one's visage both golden and grayed.

The tribes of Israel have begged for a king, a singular leader to unite them and fight for them

and give them identity so they can be like the nations Yahweh sighs he would have them thirst for him

to lead them to unite them and fight for them and give them identity so they can be different

from the nations but he will not force himself upon them,

and so he will instead accompany them on this other path,

this lesser destiny,

...