I’ve been trying to figure out how to say this without making myself sound completely unhinged, but I think I’ve spent a considerable amount of my life being Saul while praying for God to give me David’s victories.
And that’s embarrassing.
Because nobody wants to be Saul. Nobody opens their Bible hoping to identify with the insecure, jealous, emotionally unstable king who tried to murder the very person sent to help him.
Yet here I am. Good morning to everybody except my self-awareness.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my depression lately. Not necessarily because it’s gotten worse, but because I’m finally beginning to recognize how much of my life I’ve spent responding to things through the lens of whatever was happening inside me. And I don’t particularly enjoy admitting that. It’s much easier to explain how people have hurt me than to examine how my hurt has influenced the way I’ve treated people.
And before anybody starts clutching their pearls, I’m not suggesting depression makes somebody cruel, jealous, or dangerous. I’m talking about me. My insecurities. My reactions. The emotional habits I’ve developed while trying to survive things I didn’t have the language to explain.
Because sometimes I wasn’t responding to what somebody actually did.
I was responding to what their actions awakened in me.
And there’s a difference.
I’ve been asking God a question lately that feels a little disrespectful, considering everything He’s already brought me through.
Why is there such a gap between what You promise and what I experience?
Seriously.
John 10:10 talks about abundant life, but there have been mornings when getting out of bed felt like an accomplishment worthy of a standing ovation. I’ve prayed for peace while feeling anxious. I’ve thanked God for freedom while recognizing familiar chains. I’ve celebrated healing while privately wondering why certain things still hurt when I thought we’d already dealt with them.
And if I’m being completely transparent, sometimes I’ve wondered whether I was doing this whole Christianity thing incorrectly.
Because why am I still struggling with something I’ve already surrendered?
Why does an insecurity I’ve prayed about still know my address?
Why does an old appetite still show up hungry when I thought God had already closed the kitchen?
And somewhere between those questions and 1 Samuel 18, I realized something that made me put my Bible down for a minute.
I’ve been expecting God to eradicate things He may be teaching me to arrest.
And the uncomfortable part isn’t that the appetite still exists.
It’s realizing how often I’ve been the one feeding it.
Now, before we get too far, I need to explain something.
Arresting an appetite doesn’t mean pretending it isn’t there. It means recognizing that something can still exist without being allowed to govern me. My insecurity may not disappear every time I pray. My fear may still knock. My desire to withdraw, defend myself, compare, or control may still show up.
But an appetite is not an instruction.
And just because something is familiar doesn’t mean it deserves authority.
I think that’s where I’ve gotten confused about deliverance.
I wanted God to remove the desire so I wouldn’t have to practice restraint. I wanted Him to eliminate the insecurity so I wouldn’t have to confront the beliefs feeding it. I wanted freedom to mean never having to make another difficult decision.
Essentially, I wanted the results of sanctification without the inconvenience of participating in it.
Which is a very elegant way of saying I wanted God to do my homework.
And Romans 8:13 had the audacity to remind me that through the Spirit, we put to death the deeds of the body.
Through the Spirit.
Not independently. Not by sheer willpower. But not without participation either.
That distinction matters, especially with depression. Depression isn’t a sinful appetite I can simply starve into submission. It’s a real illness that deserves real care. Prayer and professional treatment aren’t competing teams. Sometimes faith looks like accepting the help God has made available while learning not to surrender my identity to what I’m experiencing.
And sometimes the victory isn’t that I feel wonderful.
It’s that I can acknowledge I don’t feel wonderful without deciding my entire life is hopeless.
Now, back to Saul.
1 Samuel 18:6-9 tells us that after David defeated Goliath, the women came out celebrating and singing about Saul killing his thousands and David his tens of thousands.
And Saul got ANGRY.
Sir.
You are still the KING.
You have the throne, the title, the army, the authority, and an entire nation celebrating a victory that benefits YOUR kingdom.
But because David received more applause, Saul suddenly couldn’t enjoy any of it.
And I laughed until I realized how often I’ve done the exact same thing.
How many times have I allowed somebody else’s progress to make my own accomplishments feel insignificant?
How many times have I watched somebody receive something I wanted and immediately started questioning whether God remembered my address?
How many times have I mistaken somebody else’s blessing for my personal rejection?
Because here’s the first thing that absolutely wrecked me.
Saul didn’t lose his throne when David received applause.
He lost his peace.
OH.
Sometimes nobody has taken anything from me.
I’ve simply allowed comparison to convince me that what I have is no longer enough.
2 Corinthians 10:12 warns about the foolishness of measuring ourselves against one another, and I’m starting to understand why.
Comparison doesn’t just make me jealous of what somebody else has.
It makes me suspicious of what God has already given me.
And insecurity is so manipulative that it can convince me to resent the very person whose victory I should be celebrating.
Which brings me to Love & Basketball.
Because Monica and Quincy were an entire emotional roller coaster, and apparently my millennial heart will never fully recover.
They both loved basketball. They both had dreams. They both wanted to succeed. But their relationship became complicated when disappointment, pride, ambition, and insecurity started influencing how they experienced one another.
Monica’s success wasn’t automatically Quincy’s failure.
But when your identity is already bruised, somebody else’s success can feel like somebody pressing directly on the wound.
And that hit me.
Because sometimes I’m not angry about what somebody did.
I’m angry about what their success makes me believe about myself.
Sometimes I’m not upset that they were chosen.
I’m upset because their being chosen reminds me of all the times I wasn’t.
Sometimes I’m not even jealous of the person.
I’m grieving a version of my life I thought I would have by now.
And instead of acknowledging the grief, I call it irritation.
Instead of confronting the insecurity, I call it discernment.
Instead of admitting I’m afraid, I start looking for something wrong with the person who triggered me.
Baby, that is not discernment.
That is insecurity with a church membership.
And Saul was doing exactly that.
But here’s another uncomfortable realization.
David wasn’t Saul’s enemy.
David was serving Saul.
The man Saul eventually tried to kill was the same man whose victory had benefited his kingdom.
And that made me wonder how many times I’ve treated somebody like an enemy simply because their presence exposed something in me that I didn’t want to confront.
What if the person isn’t the problem?
What if their success isn’t the problem?
What if their confidence, peace, boundaries, or happiness isn’t the problem?
What if the real problem is the story I tell myself when I see them experiencing something I haven’t learned to experience for myself?
Because a trigger can reveal a wound without proving that the person who triggered it caused the wound.
READ THAT AGAIN.
And the part that really unsettled me is what happens next.
1 Samuel 18:10 says that a harmful spirit from God came upon Saul, and he behaved erratically while David played the lyre.
Excuse me?
A harmful spirit FROM GOD?
Because I need to speak with somebody in management.
I’ve read that passage before, but this time I couldn’t just move past it.
1 Samuel 16:14 had already told us that the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him.
Now, I’m not going to pretend this is an easy passage to interpret. The text presents Saul’s torment in the context of God’s judgment and sovereignty, and Christians have wrestled with how to understand God’s agency and permission in passages like this for generations.
But Scripture also tells us in James 1:13 that God does not tempt anyone with evil.
And I need to be very clear about something.
Saul’s spiritual condition is not a diagnosis of depression. My depression is not evidence of divine punishment, a harmful spirit, or God withdrawing His presence from me.
Still, I couldn’t ignore the question this passage raised.
What happens when the God I trust allows something I cannot understand?
Because I can worship a God who opens the Red Sea.
I can testify about a God who brings people out of impossible situations.
I can shout about a God who heals, restores, and delivers.
But can I still trust Him when the thing I’m asking Him to remove hasn’t gone away?
Can I believe He’s good when I don’t feel good?
Can I recognize His faithfulness when my emotional experience seems to contradict what I know about His character?
And here’s the part that made me sit there for a minute.
What if I’ve been using my feelings as the final authority on God’s faithfulness?
Not because feelings are meaningless. They’re important. They tell me something about what I’m experiencing.
But they don’t always tell me the whole truth about what God is doing.
Jesus said in John 10:10 that He came to give abundant life. But in John 16:33, He also said we would have trouble in this world.
Both statements came from the same Savior.
So perhaps abundant life was never a promise that every morning would feel abundant.
Perhaps it is the life Christ gives that remains available even when circumstances are painful and emotions are difficult.
And maybe the gap between what God promises and what I experience isn’t always a contradiction.
Sometimes I’m experiencing the reality of living in a world where redemption has begun, but everything has not yet been made new.
I can belong to Christ and still need healing.
I can have faith and still need help.
I can be growing and still have moments when old patterns feel frighteningly familiar.
And I don’t have to call myself a failure every time the process looks like a process.
But then I kept reading.
And GIRL.
1 Samuel 18:11 tells us Saul threw his spear at David while David was playing music.
David was literally trying to help him.
And Saul tried to pin him to the wall.
Now, imagine you’re playing your little instrument, minding your business, trying to improve somebody’s atmosphere, and suddenly you’re auditioning for Final Destination: Palace Edition.
Absolutely not.
But I couldn’t laugh too long.
Because I started thinking about my own spears.
The sharp responses.
The defensiveness.
The way I can withdraw instead of communicating.
The times I’ve assumed somebody was criticizing me when they were genuinely trying to help.
The moments I’ve made somebody else responsible for an emotional reaction they didn’t create.
And that’s when it hit me.
Sometimes the person I’m throwing the spear at is the person God has allowed to stand beside me while I’m struggling.
WHEW.
I can be hurting and still hurt people.
I can be overwhelmed and still owe somebody an apology.
I can have legitimate emotional needs without making everybody around me responsible for anticipating them.
And I can deserve compassion while still being accountable for my behavior.
That’s a difficult balance, because I know what it’s like to feel misunderstood.
I know what it’s like to be struggling internally while everybody assumes you’re fine because you can still function externally.
But my pain doesn’t automatically make every interpretation accurate.
And my history doesn’t give every reaction permission to become somebody else’s injury.
I don’t want to be so committed to explaining why I threw the spear that I never acknowledge who had to dodge it.
Because the people who love me should not have to become casualties of battles they didn’t start.
And perhaps the most heartbreaking part of Saul’s story is that his insecurity caused him to overlook his own achievements.
He had been chosen to lead Israel.
He had experienced victories.
He had been given responsibility.
But eventually, his attention became so consumed with David that he couldn’t appreciate what was still in his own hands.
And I wonder how much of my life I’ve missed because I was obsessing over what I thought was missing.
How many answered prayers have I treated like ordinary Tuesdays?
How many miracles have I minimized because they didn’t arrive in the packaging I expected?
How many moments of peace have I interrupted by rehearsing everything that could go wrong?
Because insecurity doesn’t always make me want somebody else’s life.
Sometimes it makes me incapable of enjoying my own.
And that is a tragedy I don’t want to keep repeating.
I also keep thinking about Saul trying to put his armor on David before David fought Goliath in 1 Samuel 17:38-39.
David tried it on, realized he couldn’t move comfortably in it, and took it off.
And I wonder how often I’ve tried to wear somebody else’s healing.
Somebody else’s timeline.
Somebody else’s testimony.
Somebody else’s version of freedom.
I see someone who prayed and never struggled with that particular issue again, and suddenly I’m wondering why I still need support.
I hear somebody testify about instant deliverance, and I start questioning the validity of my own progress.
But God doesn’t have to make my process identical to somebody else’s for His work in me to be real.
Sometimes my liberation will look like a dramatic breakthrough.
Sometimes it will look like slow, steady growth.
Sometimes it will look like recognizing a trigger and choosing a healthier response.
Sometimes it will look like taking my medication, keeping an appointment, asking for help, and refusing to confuse needing support with lacking faith.
And sometimes it will look like saying, “I still want to respond the old way, but I’m choosing not to.”
The appetite is present.
But it is no longer in charge.
And that brings me back to Monica and Quincy.
Because the final game in Love & Basketball wasn’t just about who could put a ball through a hoop.
It was about two people confronting what pride, disappointment, and unspoken feelings had done to their relationship.
And I started wondering whether I’ve spent too much time treating my healing like a competition.
Me against the woman I used to be.
Me against the woman I think I should be.
Me against people who seem further along.
Me against a version of myself who apparently wakes up every morning emotionally regulated, spiritually mature, hydrated, and completely unbothered.
Who IS she?
Because I’d love her contact information.
But perhaps God isn’t asking me to defeat everybody else on the court.
Perhaps He’s asking me to stop competing with people who were never my opponents.
And perhaps the most important victory isn’t defeating another giant.
It’s refusing to become Saul when somebody else defeats theirs.
Because here’s what I finally had to admit.
I’ve spent so much time asking God to remove what triggers me that I haven’t always asked Him to reveal what those triggers expose.
I’ve wanted peace without vulnerability.
Healing without discomfort.
Deliverance without discipline.
Freedom without the responsibility of learning how to live differently.
And while I absolutely believe God can deliver instantly, I also believe sanctification is an ongoing work.
Philippians 1:6 reminds me that the One who began a good work will bring it to completion.
Which means the fact that He’s still working doesn’t mean He’s failed.
It means I’m not finished.
And neither is He.
I don’t know exactly when every insecurity will stop speaking.
I don’t know whether every difficult emotional pattern will disappear completely.
And I can’t promise that depression will never make another morning feel heavy.
But I do know I can keep pursuing treatment, keep accepting support, keep praying, and keep learning how to respond differently.
I can stop treating every difficult thought like a prophecy.
I can stop interpreting every uncomfortable feeling as an emergency.
I can stop making other people pay for wounds they didn’t inflict.
And I can acknowledge that something may still have an appetite without giving it permission to eat.
Because here’s the thing about Saul.
His insecurity didn’t just change how he saw David.
It changed how he experienced his own life.
He became so consumed with protecting what he thought he was losing that he began destroying what was still available to him.
And that is what I don’t want.
I don’t want to become so afraid of being overlooked that I overlook the people who love me.
I don’t want to become so obsessed with protecting myself that I make intimacy impossible.
I don’t want to become so consumed with what hasn’t happened that I lose gratitude for what has.
I don’t want to spend my life praying for Goliath to fall while ignoring the Saul I’ve allowed to grow inside me.
Because the most uncomfortable revelation of this entire passage wasn’t that Saul was insecure.
It was realizing how easily I could recognize his behavior while excusing my own.
And maybe that’s why this morning felt different.
I didn’t leave 1 Samuel 18 feeling like David.
I left realizing that I have some spears to put down.
Some comparisons to repent of.
Some insecurities to confront.
Some apologies to make.
Some patterns to stop defending simply because I can explain where they came from.
And some healing to continue pursuing without shaming myself for needing it.
Because being triggered isn’t the same as being defeated.
Feeling an appetite isn’t the same as feeding it.
And recognizing Saul in myself doesn’t mean I have to repeat his story.
I can be honest about the parts of me that still need work without deciding those parts are all I’ll ever be.
I can acknowledge the struggle without surrendering to it.
I can put down the spear before somebody gets hurt.
And I can celebrate David without questioning whether God still has a purpose for me.
I opened my Bible looking for the faith to defeat Goliath.
God showed me the insecurity of Saul.
And I think I’m finally beginning to understand why.
Because sometimes the giant standing between me and the life I’m praying for isn’t the person I’m threatened by. It’s the insecurity I’ve been protecting.
And I cannot keep asking God to arrest what I insist on letting out on bail.