The image I have posted says it all: THE CURSE OF GOD. It is a painting of the destruction of Jerusalem. It is what happens when a people who were anointed, chosen, and set apart persistently disobey, and the Spirit that once protected them departs.
That is the story of King Saul in 1 Samuel 16. And that is the story of the Naga leadership today.
Saul’s rise
King Saul did not begin as a tyrant. He began as a humble man from the tribe of Benjamin, hiding among the baggage, anointed by Samuel, filled with the Spirit, prophesying, leading Israel to victory.
The Naga movement began the same way.
In 1947, in 1951, in the early 1960s, our fathers were anointed. Not by oil alone, but by tears, prayer, fasting, and the collective will of the people in the jungle. The Spirit of the Lord was upon them. That is why a small, barefoot people could stand before an empire and say, we are not yours. They had wisdom beyond education, courage beyond guns, and unity beyond tribe. That was anointing.
The Naga people understood, like Israel, that leadership is not an election. It is an anointing. And anointing requires obedience.
Why thy spirit departed
Scripture is brutally precise: “But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him.” 1 Samuel 16:14
Why?
- Disobedience and Rebellion – 1 Samuel 13 and 15:
Saul was commanded to wait for Samuel to offer sacrifice. He could not wait. He offered it himself. He was commanded to utterly destroy Amalek and take no spoil. He spared King Agag and kept the best cattle, and then lied, saying he did it to sacrifice to God.
This is exactly the sin of the Naga leadership in the present generation.
God commanded, be holy, be truthful, keep the nation above self. But our Sauls could not wait for God’s time. They made their own sacrifices. They made political sacrifices for expediency, for money, for Delhi’s favor, for a chair in an Indian state.
God said, destroy the Amalek of corruption, tribalism, extortion, and fratricide. Do not take its spoil. But our leaders kept Agag alive. They kept the best cattle. They kept the spoil of taxation from their own people, the spoil of contract commission, the spoil of secret funds from agencies, and said, we will use it for the national cause. God says, “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.” 1 Samuel 15:22-23.
Rebellion has become policy. Disobedience has become strategy.
- Resistance to the Spirit – Telling the Spirit to Depart:
This is the most poignant point in the note. Saul did not lose the Spirit by accident. He resisted the Spirit until the Spirit left. He effectively told the Spirit to depart by his repeated defiance.
Naga leaders have done the same. The Holy Spirit convicts through the cry of mothers, through the counsel of the church, through the voice of village elders, through the Scriptures. When the church said, stop killing your brothers, the leaders resisted. When mothers said, stop taxing our children, they resisted. When the Bible said, “Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not bear false witness,” they resisted, saying, this is politics, this is national necessity.
God respects human agency, even in leaders. If a leadership repeatedly tells the Spirit to leave, God will grant that desire. And when the Spirit leaves, something else must enter.
- The Consequence – The Distressing Spirit:
The Bible says after the Spirit departed, a distressing spirit troubled Saul. He became paranoid, fearful, depressed, suspicious of everyone, throwing spears at David who was playing music to soothe him.
Look at the Naga leadership today. What spirit troubles them?
Paranoia. Every other Naga tribe is suspected. Every other Naga faction is an enemy. Every young Naga who questions is labeled anti-national, overground, agent.
Fear and Depression. A leadership that cannot sleep without security, that cannot walk among its own people without fear, that is tormented by its own past deeds.
Murderous Jealousy. Like Saul throwing a spear at David, our leaders have thrown spears at their own Davids, at the anointed new generation. They fear the young because the young still have the Spirit they have lost.
The second image, “THE CURSE OF GOD,” is not a curse God imposes arbitrarily. It is the natural vacuum after the Spirit departs. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, unity, and joy. Where the Spirit departs, there is torment, division, bloodshed, and a curse that looks like chaos, like the image, bodies lying on the temple steps.
The generational transition
1 Samuel 16:13 says, “Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.”
While Saul was tormented in his palace, God was anointing a shepherd boy in the field whom no one considered.
This is the most urgent message for the Naga Nation today. God is not without witness.
While our Sauls are still clinging to chairs, to titles, to ceasefire camps, to Nagaland state election tickets, God is anointing new Davids. Not in the camps, but in the villages. Not in Delhi, but in the prayer rooms. Young men and women who have not bowed to Baal, who have not taken the spoil, who have not learned to extort their own people, who still believe that Naga nationhood means righteousness, not revenue.
David’s harp soothed Saul temporarily, but David could not heal Saul permanently because Saul would not repent. Our new generation is playing the harp today, trying to soothe the tormented older generation with respect, with songs, with appeals for unity, for reconciliation, for truth. But soothing is not healing. Healing requires Saul to step down.
Historically, present and future
Historically: Nagas were anointed for a purpose: to be a witness people, a people who said no to empire and yes to God. The Spirit was with us. That is why we survived.
Presently: The Spirit has departed from the leadership structure. We have form without power. We have flags without anointing. We have negotiations without truth. We have factions without fathers. The distressing spirit is manifest: fratricide, tribalism, extortion, secret deals with the enemy, and the curse that our own people are tired of the movement that once gave them pride.
Future If We Don’t Repent: Scripture is clear about what happens to a Saul who does not repent.
He loses his kingdom. “The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine, that is better than thou.” 1 Samuel 15:28. If our leaders do not repent, God will rent the stewardship of the Naga future from them and give it to a generation better than they.
He loses his dynasty. Saul’s sons died with him on Mount Gilboa. A leadership that does not repent ensures its children will have no honourable future in the nation.
He loses his life on his own sword. The final tragedy of Saul is that he fell on his own sword after being wounded by Philistines. A leadership that lives by deception and division will eventually be destroyed by the very systems it slept with. Delhi will not save a Saul whose anointing has gone.
And the people suffer a curse. As in the painting, the temple is destroyed, not because God hated the people, but because the leaders defiled the temple.
The remedy
The remedy for Saul was repentance. But Saul never fully repented. He said, “I have sinned: yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people.” 1 Samuel 15:30. He wanted honour without repentance. Our leaders today say the same: honour us as national workers, even if we have sinned.
The remedy for the Naga Nation is different:
- Obedience as Lifeline: Let leaders return to complete obedience to God and to the mandate of the people. No more secret accords. No more taking spoil.
- Sensitivity to the Spirit: The Spirit must be welcomed back through prayer, fasting, and public confession of wrongs done to the people. “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14.
- Anointing and Accountability: The community must now prayerfully anoint new generational leaders. Not by gun, not by faction, but by character. Leaders aligned with God’s heart, like David, a man after God’s own heart, not after power’s heart. Leaders who will be accountable to the people and to God.
A Solemn Warning and a Hope
The Spirit of the Lord once departed from Saul, and Israel entered its darkest hour before David.
The Spirit of the Lord has departed from many thrones of Naga leadership, and we are in our distressing spirit hour, a time of torment, suspicion, and curse.
If we do not repent and change our ways, especially we the Naga leaders, the future that awaits is not integration, not sovereignty, but irrelevance. God will raise stones to be children of Abraham. He will raise a new generation from outside the camps to finish what the anointed first generation started.
But if we repent, if we humble ourselves, if we tear our hearts and not our garments, the anointing can return.
For the oil never runs dry in Samuel’s horn. It is waiting for the next David.
May the Naga people have the wisdom to recognize him when he comes, and may our Sauls have the grace to step aside before the curse becomes permanent. Kuknalim!!!
Michael Meiphami Shaiza is the President of Ukhrul-based NGO Ecological Rehabilitators’ Association (ERA).
(Views expressed are writers’ own and do not, in whatsoever manner, reflect that of Ukhrul Now)
