No Surprises to God...

“When you come to the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ you may indeed set a king over you whom the LORD your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the LORD has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.
“And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.
(Deuteronomy 17:14-20 ESV)
In I Samuel 8, when the people of Israel demanded from Samuel that he appoint a king, this action came as no surprise to God.  Hundreds of years before, in His final instructions to them, before Moses passes off the scene, God gave them instructions for how they should choose a king, and how the king should conduct himself.  He even hints at one of the reasons they would want to do so: "like all the nations that are around me." A king was to be had with caution.  When the people pressed Samuel to do so, it was not so much that they did that was discouraging, but how and why they did. As God put it so plainly to Samuel: And the LORD said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you.
(1 Samuel 8:7-8 ESV) Many times it is not that God does not want to give us things; it is why and how we want them.  We want them instead of Him.  We are discontented with Him. We act like He is not enough.  But He is. He is all we need.