"For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose" ( Phillipians 2:13)
The public life of King David is well known. However, there is an early aspect of his life quite hidden though we can get glimpse of it. The first time we get to know David he is a stay home kid while his big brothers are on to bigger stuff, like fighting with King Saul. "Jesse’s three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war: The firstborn was Eliab; the second, Abinadab; and the third, Shammah. David was the youngest. The three oldest followed Saul, but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father’s sheep at Bethlehem" ( I Samuel 27:13-14).
Left home alone perhaps it was a time for David to bond with with the old man Jesse. Maybe he sometimes felt idle and ignored. But there was something maturing in his life for the life ahead. For in the meantime as he would later point to King Saul once an opportunity availed itself, God was ironing out his CV. When he offered to take on Goliath and Saul hesitated, he quicky shot back: "Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God.The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine" ( vv 35-37).
That's the point. What had apparent been idle moments God was preparing David for the battles ahead. He would not only emerge out of the shadow as a great warrior but also a shepherd of his people ever relying on God.
Equally so, for all of us, there are moments that might appear idle and we feel frustrated as we see the days go by. Yet, in His gentle ways, God is preparing us for great days ahead.
Prayer today: Lord Father God, maker of heaven and earth, for those periods in life of apparent inactivity and maybe trials, help me appreciate them as the maturing of a great tree, for in due time and season it will bear fruit, this I pray in Jesus'name
Related upcoming events
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19/04/2024 - 20/04/2024 All day“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” ( Isaiah 43:19).
Just before fire was unleashed down on Sodom and Gommorah, Lot was told to pack up with his wife and two daughters and leave their homestead. Now, once out of danger, “But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt” ( Gen 19:26). Perhaps here we might pause and ask why she was bothered to look back.
Of course it could have been that old “curiosity killed a cat” mistake! Yet, it could also have been Lot’s wife was not sure where she was going and longed for her old life back. This is a common error. There was nothing stirring to look back. Just before Lot’s neighbors had attacked his house eager to rape his visitors. “They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them” ( vv 5). Was there anything worth looking back to!
The case of Lot’s wife could be anyone else’s experience. The Lord has plucked you out of some mess. You have been delivered to a new life. Yet, somehow you decide to look back, as though there was anything good and worth longing for. Sometimes it is a bitter past you have been delivered from. Other than rejoice in your new blessings you keep being drawn back!
A wise caution goes, “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly” ( Proverbs 26:11). If the Lord has just led you out of a certain mess why look back like it was much better! Instead look ahead, for “he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick: Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past” ( vv 17- 18).
Prayer today: Lord Father God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, I thank you for delivering me from the darkness of the past and I look forward to a bright new future in you, this I pray in Jesus’ name!
