1 Samuel 14:24-30. After battling the Philistines to the point where they all fled and Israel was delivered from them, King Saul is still vengeful and says "Cursed be the man who eats food until it is evening and I am avenged on my enemies." So the people, rather than relaxing in their victory, are distressed and don't eat all day. As they enter the forest in pursuit of the Philistines, they come upon a huge honeycomb, but they are mindful of Saul's oath and they do not eat of it. Saul's son, Jonathan, however, had not heard his father's oath and he eats some of the honey "and his eyes became bright." The people tell him his father forbade anyone to eat that day, but Jonathan says "My father has troubled the land; see how my eyes have become bright.... How much better if the people had eaten freely today of the spoils of their enemies which they found; for now the slaughter among the Philistines has not been great."

Saul refused to take the win, to rejoice in the deliverance that God had granted the people of Israel that day. God will avenge his people, and fight for them, but he takes no delight in death and destruction - it is contrary to everything he is - he created and loves the Philistines, too, after all. The story of the Old Testament is there, in part, for all of humanity to see the lengths that God will go to for his chosen people. Now that we also have the New Testament, we know that this means all of us, anyone who loves and obeys God wholeheartedly and accepts his love in return. But Saul, here, instead of rejoicing in God's deliverance, is bitter that all of the Philistines have not been slain, that they got away, he will not have it. So he pursues them to slay as many as possible and passes on his bitterness to his people by refusing to let them eat or revel in their victory.

Jonathan, though, does not know of his father's words and frame of mind. He is, in fact, enjoying the victory, and so he gladly and gratefully eats the honey they find - the symbolic fruits of their victory and of God's blessing on them. Because he is in the correct frame of mind, his eyes become bright - that is, he gains wisdom. So when the people are worried for him, and tell him of his father's oath, Jonathan, wisely, says his father is wrong. It would have been much better for the people to have enjoyed their victory, especially since it was accomplished without much slaughter of their opponents.

It is always better to win without destroying your enemy, to be gracious in victory, but in our human nature we often get inflamed in battle and feel the need to annihilate our enemies, even when they have given up the fight. This leads to great unhappiness and anxiety on our part. We will never fully defeat our enemies, because our fight is really against "powers and principalities," that is, the forces of evil. Only Jesus can (and did) fully defeat these powers, but we remain here, for now, fighting them in their death throes. These enemies will try so hard to bring us down with them. If we, like Saul, do not gratefully accept our occasional victories over them, and leave our human opponents who are under their influence to retreat and, hopefully, learn and grow so that one day they will be our allies, we will never find peace.

When a leader refuses to take the win, as Saul did here, and keeps his people pursuing the enemy at the cost of their rest and nourishment, the whole nation suffers, the leader is "troubling his land" as Jonathan says of his father.