What I Learned from David

Our small group is studying King David.  I have, what I believe to be, a learning disability in that I cannot retain the information that I read for more than...oh, a half second.  I get frustrated reading any book, because I lose track of who's who and what happened 20 seconds ago.  This is also true when I read the bible.  I can read a book in the bible and forget what happened or who did what, when.  So in my frustration, I quit.  Well, I've really been trying to learn more about David....and so many other fascinating characters in 1 Samuel. 

A week ago a friend and I had coffee and were discussing King David, our small group, and the Bible.  I told her my frustrations and that I just wasn't getting it.  I went so far as to tell her I just don't get why we need to study the Old Testament at all, it just confuses me and is just a bunch of stories of people who follow God for a while, fall away, follow God, fall away, etc.  Which is true of people then, and people now.  So why study it.  (this is all coming from the fact that I have a hard time with remembering what I read)

So, this morning, determined to dig in so that I might participate (or at least understand a LITTLE of what was being said at small group tonight) I opened up to 1 Samuel 17 and began to read the wonderful "Sunday school story" of David and Goliath.  I took notes....LOTS of notes.  Reread when I didn't comprehend the first time.  Made diagrams.  Looked up some things.  Reread.  Looked back over my notes.  And then something happened.  I was learning so much more about this story!  God, through David, taught me several lessons in all of this that I have missed so many times before by just hearing this "Sunday school" story.  Encouraging lessons!

This past week I've been struggling with why I haven't been losing weight.  Because of this, I've been feeling like I'm not important.  I'm just a stay-at-home mom who is trying to lose weight and nobody even notices how hard I'm trying,  picks up after people, cleans up after people, cooks, washes, vacuums, etc with hardly anyone noticing the things that I'm doing.  (or so it seems)  Isn't that where David was before "the big show"?  He was just a little brother, who tended to get picked on and ignored while his brothers were fighting in battles.  He was just a shephard boy taking care of sheep.  BUT....by being a shephard, he learned to defend his sheep by keeping the lions and bears away.  Little did he know, he was preparing to fight the giant! 

Later on in chapter 18, as David played his harp for Saul, Saul flung a couple of spears at David trying to kill him!  But David dodged the spears twice!  A reminder that bad things can, and do, happen to people who are just trying to do good.  When people are doing good things for God, Satan likes to interfere and tries to ruin it. 

I wonder what "giant" God is preparing for me to battle?  I sure hope I'm ready. 

Let's show Satan who is in charge!  With God on our side, Satan doesn't have a chance!