Jola Speaks

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 19:9–10 NIV   “What have I done?” This is a hard question and it comes from a very deep place!  “Then David fled from Naioth in Ramah, and went and said to Jonathan, “What have I done? What is my iniquity, and what is my sin before your father, that he seeks my life?”” I Samuel 20:1 NKJV When we go through tough situations, we tend to ask the same question. Why is the dev...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 18:12–15 NIV As David responded to Saul in love and let God have his way, he was blessed accordingly by God. The Bible records that “he was successful in everything he did”. Even when he would go to battle with the Philistines leading a small troop, he was still more successful. He was not focused on retaliating or scheming but focused his strength on what he was called t...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 19:6–10 NIV David faced fear and trauma in his dealings with Saul. How did David respond to all of it? He faced it head-on! obeying and showing up despite all that was at stake. He only ran away when he got the leading to. In the normal sense, when one experiences trauma that the brain perceives as danger, one’s flight or fight mode is activated to protect us. This is the...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 19:3–10 NIV “So Saul heeded the voice of Jonathan, and Saul swore, “As the Lord lives, he shall not be killed.”” ‭‭I Samuel‬ ‭19‬:‭6‬ ‭NKJV‬‬ When Jonathan spoke to Saul on David’s behalf, he heeded, and as King Saul made a statement that David shall not be killed, and things went back to how they were before. But war broke out, and David fought the Philistines and won, a...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 16:23, 18:10–11, 19:9–16 NIV God cannot be programmed. He has different ways of answering us when we call on him. The method God used yesterday may be different from that of today. So we need to respond to God’s instructions per time and be flexible in adapting to the various leadings. God protected David in different ways when the evil spirit came upon Saul and when Saul...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 18:12–27 NIV With all that Saul did to either kill or make David’s life miserable—sending people to kill him, demoting him, sending him to the warfront so they perhaps take his life (on a side note, our brother David did this to Uriah 🤦‍♀️ but we will discuss this later). David did not for once retaliate; he did not try to get back at Saul even when he had opportunities...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 18:1–4 NIV   We’ve been discussing how God used Jonathan as a help to David in tough times, and today we will look at how important Jonathan was in his journey.   Jonathan was heir to the throne; he not only saved David from Saul but also seeded the throne to him, neglecting his position as heir to the throne. Saul was fighting David constantly to retain the throne after...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 19:9–18 NIV God was very specific about the people he set aside to help David in troubled times with Saul. Out of everyone around him, God used the children of King Saul—the prince and heir to the throne and princess Michal.     Michal loved David dearly, and although Saul’s intention was to give Michal to David as a wife so she could be a snare to David and at the same t...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 18:22–26 NIV   Here we continue from yesterday’s discussion. In hindsight, we see that Jonathan was God. But if you look at the story, there were so many other players that could have been perceived as helpers. For example, Saul’s attendants. The same people who convinced David to marry Michal were the same attendants Saul had sent to kill David. If David was forcing his...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 18:1, 19:1–6 NIV As David went through a difficult season in his life where he was running for his life as Saul looked for different means to kill him, God sent him someone to help him through it—a Jonathan. There was no clear reason why Jonathan should have loved David, given that King Saul was his father and he was the heir to the throne. But God had put the favour and...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 18:12–29 NIV    How do we respond to fear? Saul’s response to his fear of David was out of love, not in love. He thought that if he got rid of David, he would be able to have that lasting peace of mind. But that was certainly not the answer.    We need to consider asking ourselves, is our action or reaction done in love or is it done out of fear? As hard as it is, our res...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 18:12–28 NIV We’ve been discussing Saul and David and have come to realise how far Saul went to destroy David and how low his fear of David pulled him. His fear gave way to evil thoughts from the devil, which he acted upon, and as a result, it drew him lower and lower. Fear can be likened to the Japanese Knotweed. I have picked up gardening lately ( story for another day;...

Send us Fan Mail  Genesis 49:8–12, 1 Samuel 18:14 NIV   In today’s message, we step back to the time when Jacob spoke his last words—blessings and curses—to his sons before he passed. We look at the tribe of Judah, where David arose from, and the tribe of Benjamin, where Saul came from.   The words of Jacob were clearly reflected in David’s life. He was victorious in the battles he fought, startin...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 18:12–26 NIV Continuing on from yesterday’s discussion, Saul was ready to throw everything away just to destroy David. His daughters, his kingdom—all because of his hatred for David and the thoughts that followed. He became irrational, and even though he knew that God’s hands were upon David, he still tried to kill him. Responding in fear can make us do things that we nor...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 18:12–27 NIV   As David triumphed and had relevance over Saul in many ways, King Saul feared David as he knew the Lord was with him and so became jealous and afraid of David. He was so focused on killing David that if he couldn’t stop, even to the point of sending him on a tough battle to be killed. But in everything, David was successful—that even made Saul more fearful....

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 18:5–10 NIV    The women sang, "Saul had slain his thousands, but David his ten thousands". When Saul saw how the people celebrated and acknowledged David when he won the battles, he was very angry and tried to kill David, thereby opening the door to the evil spirit.    Saul had his focus on the approval of men. He was so caught up with it that it was a need for...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 18:5–7 NIV A shepherd boy becomes the leader of an army—a prisoner becomes the prime minister. Is definitely unconventional.  David was not trained in the army; his position of duty was with his father’s sheep. But guess what? Keeping the sheep and battling wild animals was a training ground for him to be a great leader in the army and the king of Israel.     God can use...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 18:6–11, 16:14 NIV The women were rejoicing over David, saying David killed tens of thousands and Saul thousands. This made Saul angry, he took offence and became very jealous of David ( he was not even angry at the women 😂). He thought to himself, What more can David get except the kingdom.  Literally the next day, an evil spirit came upon him, so this jealousy and ange...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 17:55–58 NIV   Looking back at the life of David before he battled Goliath and his experiences as a shepherd boy, we could find that everything he encountered—the lions and the bears—and the experiences he gathered from shepherding were all necessary to shape him into that bold and confident young boy that could stand before giants and defeat them.   And we realise that G...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 17:55; Isaiah 60:3 NIV   As David approached Goliath, Saul saw him and began to ask questions about who he was. Not at the point of winning the battle, but even before he fought Goliath, Saul had seen that he was going to win already. Kings will come to the brightness of your rising." Isaiah 69:3 - before the nations even see the light! Even though David had played t...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 17:37, 45–47 NIV   Today we compare David and Joseph, at the point of their shining: David vs. Goliath and Joseph meeting Pharaoh. We see that at this very point of shining, they acknowledged God, and people that saw the extraordinary, excellent works recognised God in heaven. “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good deeds and moral excel...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 17:34–40 NIV   When Saul offered David his armour, helmet, and sword to fight Goliath, David tried them but he was not use to them and so removed them.  He was use to being a shepherd not a warrior and so he went the war dressed as a shepherd with the least without these protections and yet still killed the biggest giant at the war.  Why? Because he embraced Gods strategy...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 17:38–47 NIV   Today we talk about the preparation and execution of David when he came to battle Goliath. The preparation enabled the excellent execution.  Link to the podcast is in the bio.  𝙅𝙤𝙡𝙖𝙎𝙥𝙚𝙖𝙠𝙨 is a short clip intended to grow and equip us in our trust walk with God. The current focus is on life's seasons. Life is in seasons - so it is important that we lean...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 17:39–46 NIV   There could have been many other ammunitions that are more suited to a battle that David could have used. But when we study the strategy for overcoming Goliath we see that one key part was that Goliath needed to have underestimated David! to think this is easy game and to let his guard down. So seeing a young man with a shepherd bag, a sling and stones will...

Send us Fan Mail 1 Samuel 17:39–44 NIV The battle between David and Goliath was not a battle of physical strength. If we compare, it is evidently clear that Goliath was miles ahead of David in physical strength, warrior physique, preparedness of a warrior, etc. The battle was one of strategy. Goliath did not get that memo!  And so we see a shepherd boy coming to war to fight a giant with stones, a...