I don't know how many times I’ve told myself to stop watching Netflix right before going to bed. I know you all can relate. I lay down, put on a show and episode after episode I get hooked. I tell myself, “I can’t stop now without knowing what happened to this guy they just shot.” “I can’t stop now after the plane crashed with all the doctors.” I just can’t stop myself from watching another episode. Sometimes I’ll go all the way to 2:00 AM and I'm still hooked on the show. So, I tell myself I won’t watch a show before bed, but every night I do.

I hate how real Saul’s response is. He does the right thing and kicks out all the spiritists and mediums of the land. Yet in the face of death, fear, and uncertainty, Saul goes back to the very thing he had expelled. Saul goes hidden to a medium to try to communicate with Samuel, and of course it doesn't go as planned.

1 Samuel 28:6-7 “He inquired of the LORD, but the LORD did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. Saul then said to his attendants, “Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her.”

In a similar way to how we all go to Netflix at night and lose sleep. We will return to the same addictive behavior, the same toxic relationship, the same victim mentality, and find ourselves shocked when things don’t go as planned. Proverbs 26:11 says that just as a dog returns to their vomit, fools will return to their foolishness. I get annoyed at myself when I give out the same excuse over and over again to justify my negative behavior or reaction. The truth is, suffering is not an excuse for toxicity, it’s not an excuse for us behaving however we want. We can choose to heal. We can choose to address the unwanted behavior. It’s a matter of if we’re willing to bring that to Jesus’ presence instead of to a medium. If we’re willing to keep what we expelled out and get rid of the door, instead of opening it up again!