Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel:  “I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.” Samuel was angry, and he cried out to the Lord all that night. Early in the morning Samuel got up and went to meet Saul, but he was told, “Saul has gone to Carmel. There he has set up a monument in his own honor and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal.”
Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel.”
1 Samuel 15:10-12, 17

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I love fantasy books and movies—Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia—entering into a new, imagined story where the creatures are otherworldly and the adventures are epic. While the storytelling is fanciful and extreme, one thing is true in all of those stories: they capture the catastrophic results when an insecure, fearful person grasps for power. 

Though the reality of my world doesn’t involve ewoks or elves, the battle for power and meaning in our own right is all around us. 

Each of us battle with doubt, shame, or fear in some area of our lives. This may always be part of our story this side of eternity. What matters is what power we give to those things. Are we using them to point us to Jesus, or are we letting them break down and define our identity? 

When we let doubt, shame, or fear be the lens through which we see ourselves, we become reactive. When we live in a place of reactivity, we become destructive to ourselves and those around us. We mar our relationships with others and live out of our brokenness, rather than the confident and peaceful love of God.

When Saul allowed his own insecurities to guide his decisions, he became violently jealous towards David, stopped listening to the wisdom of the prophet Samuel, and endangered the entire nation of Israel. Saul allowed his fear to blind him from the security of God’s anointing. 

In contrast, David was honest about his brokenness and lived out of an assurance of God’s love for him. David didn’t need to act out of fear, even when his life was at risk, because he was able to see himself as someone seen and known by the God of the universe. David held a posture of humility in his leadership because he had anchored his identity in God. 

Humility comes when we begin to see ourselves as God sees us. Truly humble people function from a place of focusing on others and allowing God to build them up.   They recognize  their worth isn’t dependent on the perceived value of others – it’s deeper and richer than that. 

Next Steps

Where are you letting fear, shame, or doubt rule your decisions? Are those things shaping your identity? Surrender them to Jesus and ask that your eyes be opened to the way God sees you.