The Tallest Man Was Hiding in the Baggage

Your son comes home talking about his coach.

Coach said this. Coach showed me that. Coach thinks I could start next year. He is lit up in a way he has not been with you in a long time.

You smile and say, “That’s great.” But something tightens in your chest.

Or maybe it is your daughter quoting her stepdad. A younger guy at church getting asked to lead the men’s group. Another father whose kids seem to adore him.

You would never say it out loud. But you feel smaller.

King Saul’s insecurity did not start with David. Go back to the beginning of his story. Saul looked like a king. Scripture says that he was “a head taller than any of the people” (1 Samuel 9:2). But on the day the prophet Samuel gathered all Israel to present him as king, Saul could not be found. They had to ask the LORD where he was, and the answer was almost comic: “Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage” (1 Samuel 10:22).

The tallest man in Israel, hiding behind the luggage.

Years later, after David killed Goliath, the women came out of the towns singing, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.” Here is something worth knowing: that kind of pairing, a thousand and then ten thousand, is a common pattern in Hebrew poetry. Psalm 91:7 uses it too: “Though a thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand.” Some Bible scholars suggest the women may have meant it as praise for both men. Saul heard only an insult. “What more can he have but the kingdom?” (1 Samuel 18:8).

Insecurity hears a threat in a compliment.

The very next day, Saul threw a spear at David (1 Samuel 18:10 to 11). Scripture gives the real reason underneath: “Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with David but had departed from Saul” (1 Samuel 18:12).

Now notice the contrast that sits right in the same chapter. Saul’s own son, Jonathan, the heir to the throne, had every reason to see David as a rival. Instead, “the souls of Jonathan and David were knit together.” Jonathan took off his own robe, his tunic, his sword, his bow, and his belt, and gave them to David (1 Samuel 18:1 to 4). The prince handed over the symbols of his own position. Jonathan was secure enough to be glad for someone else.

And Saul’s insecurity eventually turned on his own son. When Jonathan defended David, Saul screamed insults at him and threw a spear at him too (1 Samuel 20:30 to 33). A father’s insecurity does not stay contained. Sooner or later, the children feel it.

Yours probably looks smaller. A cutting comment about the coach. A need to be right. Quietly competing with the people your children admire. But the root is the same: a sense of worth that depends on being the one who is praised.

David’s greater Son shows another way. Jesus had every right to be honored. Yet Paul says He “emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7). Jesus washed His disciples’ feet. He did not need to win.

Jesus was secure in His Father’s love. And in Christ, so are you: “your life is now hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).

Nobody can take that from you. Not a coach, not a stepparent, not another father. So you can be a Jonathan instead of a Saul. You can be glad when your child has good men around them.