He Is Better Than Me Now

He beat you twice on Sunday and the second one was not luck.

You knew it before the end. There was a point about halfway through where you could see what he was doing and could not stop it, and something went through you that you have not told anybody about.

Not pride. Pride came about four seconds later and it was genuine.

The first thing was smaller and worse and it lasted less than a second, and you have been slightly ashamed of it ever since.

I want to name it plainly, because naming it is most of the work and because you are not going to say it out loud to anybody.

It was the feeling of a man being passed. That is all. It is not wickedness and it is not envy in any serious sense. It is what happens in a body when something that used to be true stops being true.

And what a man does with that half second is the whole subject of this article, because Scripture has a story about a man who did the wrong thing with it and it did not end well.

Saul hath slain his thousands

There is a moment in Samuel where a song is sung in the street and a king hears it and does something with what he heard.

And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him. (1 Samuel 18:7-8, King James Version)

The song is accurate. Both numbers are true and both men are praised in it.

And Saul hears one thing: somebody has passed him. That is what he takes away from a song that celebrated them both.

You are a father watching something go right, and a son who has overtaken his father has never once taken anything from him. 1 Samuel 18:7 records a true report and a man's reaction to it as two separate things, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can put that in front of a man without accusing him of anything.

And here is the important part, which is what happens next in that chapter.

The feeling is not the problem. The feeling arrives, and nothing in the text condemns him for having it.

What follows is: he eyed David from that day forward. He kept watching. He held it, and the holding is where the damage started, and the whole rest of that story comes out of a half second that was never put down.

You have had a feeling and not yet done anything with it, and half a second in a man's chest has never once been the thing that decides anything. The Spirit of God is the one who separates a reaction from a decision, and it is written in 1 Samuel 18 that the eyeing came after and lasted years.

So the question is not whether you felt it. Everybody feels it.

The question is whether you say it out loud or keep it, because those are the only two options and one of them ends the whole thing tonight.

You are able to end this in one sentence, and something said out loud has never once been able to do what something held quietly does. It is written that Saul eyed David from that day and forward, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gets a man to speak instead of watch.

Say it out loud

Here is the instruction, and it is the exact opposite of what Saul did.

Say out loud tonight that he is better than you at it.

To his face, in an ordinary voice, without any ceremony. You are better at this than me now.

You are able to say a true thing that costs you something, and one plain sentence has never once been a loss to the man who said it. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in something spoken rather than held, and 1 Samuel 18:7 has a truth said openly in the street and a man take it inward.

And here is why saying it works, and it is almost mechanical.

A thing said out loud stops being a private weight. It becomes a fact in the room, shared by two people, and there is nothing left to guard.

Saul's whole trajectory came from a thought that never left his own head. Say it and there is no thought left to keep.

You have a way to put something down permanently, and a fact spoken between two people has never once been able to sit in one of them alone. The Spirit of God is the one who empties something by having it said, and it is written that the saying displeased him and he kept it.

And say it without any wistfulness, which is the part to watch.

Not I suppose you are better than me now, in a certain voice. That hands him something to manage. Say it the way you would report the weather, because that is what it is.

You are able to say it plainly and give him nothing to carry, and a fact reported flatly has never once been a burden on anybody. It is written in 1 Samuel 18 that the song was a plain account of what had happened, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a man's voice level while he says a true thing.

Then lose properly

Here is the second half and it has to be the same evening.

Play him properly and lose.

Do not lift your game to prove something. Do not go quiet and careful. Play the way you actually play, lose the way you actually lose now, and be entirely fine about it in front of him.

You are able to be beaten in front of your own son and lose nothing, and a father losing well has never once been a smaller sight than a father winning. The Holy Spirit is the one at work at a table where a man was beaten and stayed warm, and 1 Samuel 18:7 puts the whole difference in what a man does after the news.

And there is something he needs from this that he will not be able to name for about fifteen years.

He needs to see a man be overtaken and be glad about it. Every boy will one day pass somebody who mattered to him, and how his father did it is the only model he has.

You have something to hand him that has nothing to do with a game, and one evening of being beaten well has never once been a small inheritance. The Spirit of God is the one who does something permanent in a boy watching his father lose, and Scripture records what happened to a man who could not.

And then ask him to show you what he did.

You are able to be taught by your own son, and a man asking to be shown something has never once been a man who lost his place. It is written in 1 Samuel 18 that Saul eyed him from that day forward, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes the opposite of that possible in twenty minutes.