Saul’s Armour
There are some stories that never grow old. These are the ones you can return to, time after time, and still enjoy them, be that reading, or if you are like me, watching.
There are certain films that are my ‘go to’, depending on how I am feeling. If I want to remember my childhood, then watching the original ‘Star Wars’ film evokes strong positive memories.
For a feel-good movie, nothing tops ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, and in the action and adventure category, who better than Indiana Jones in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’!
It’s amazing how I can watch a film again and see something that I have never seen before. This happened to me whilst re-reading the story of David and Goliath in the Bible. I thought I knew this story, but something jumped out at me when I read this…
“Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armour on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.
“I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off.”
This is the point in the story where the young shepherd David, says that he will take on the enemy-warrior, Goliath.
What I had not seen before, was that it was King Saul who put his clothes on David. This did not work for David, he said ‘I am not used to them’, so he removed them and went and defeated Goliath in his way.
This is all about expectations. King Saul thought that if David was going into battle that he should wear what he would wear. In other words, Saul had an expectation of what he thought David should do. Fortunately, David resisted and did not allow Saul’s expectation to influence what he did.
We too can have expectations of others. A wrong expectation is to put something ‘on’ somehow, wanting then to do whatever in your way or style.
Then there is the other side of the coin: when people put their expectations on us. When I took over the lead of our church from the former pastor, he just encouraged me to go for it. Not once did he ever say ‘how’ I should operate or function. He just wanted to see the church flourish and grow.
It’s from this story in the Bible that we get the phrase ‘Saul’s armour’, and it’s not a good thing.
Perhaps you can relate to Saul? You may have put your expectation on someone. Ask God to help you to adjust how you see that person and to let them do whatever it is their way.
Or perhaps you can relate to David? You may feel that somebody has put a wrong expectation on you? Ask God to remove it, so you can be free to operate in the way God has made you.
God bless you :)
Gary Bastin - Hope Community Church leader