14. Training Season (I Samuel 17:37-50)
Posted by:
SeLahGirl on
October 25, 2007 at
2:26PM EST
I just wanted to insert this passage about David and Goliath, because
it just encouraged me so much during the prayer time I mentioned above.
God seems to be speaking against discouragement. So many of us are
looking at our lives and feeling like failures and thinking the things
in our past, and the messy walk we have stumbled thru so far, is just
too messy or just too boring or just too -- whatever -- for God to do
anything with. We are left feeling like our lives are a waste of
everyone's time, that we squandered it or that it was stolen from us,
and we are left with nothing to show for having ever been born.
But
I feel like we are in an excellent place, poised to strike back against
the discouragement and lies that the enemy has caused us to believe.
Lying in the grass, whispering to our thoughts with all subtlety, he
has convinced us that we don't matter, that we can't make a difference,
that there is no hope for us, no hope for this black world -- that we
may as well just sit down and watch everyone parade past us.
But
God is saying to rise up. Return to that childish faith that trusts him
completely no matter the circumstance. Call the devil a liar, and tell
him to slither back into the weeds and the dirt with his lies and his
discouragement. Our God is the giver of HOPE and FAITH and LOVE, and as
his children -- we are born to victory!
so consider this...
Training Season
(I Samuel 17:37-50)
37 The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine."
Saul said to David, "Go, and the LORD be with you."
The
first time that bear or lion attacked, I'm sure David trembled with
fear. I'm sure as it growled and stalked him and the sheep that he
loved, he must have felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up as a
cold shiver crept down his back. It was a test of his courage, would he
stand and fight, or would he surrender all to the beast and cower in
the shadows? He stood, He fought, and He won.
Not only did he
win the battle with the beasts in the field, he won the battle against
fear and intimidation that the enemy brings against us. Doubt in
ourselves, doubt in God. David was tempted, but he resolved to resist
the temptation. And each time he stood his ground, it trained him in
the physical for what he chose to believe in the spiritual... and in
his heart.
It was a season of testing, it was a season of
preparation. A time spent buried in the ground, when his faith was only
a tiny seed, where no one could see the blackness of the weight upon
him, no one could see the breaking, the loneliness he felt, the sweat
upon his brow -- the tremble in his limbs as he stepped out in faith
and slung that first stone back at a real enemy.
(I'm out of time, but I'll be back to finish the story...)
*hugs*
