Lions and Bears!!

We all know David was a great king, a warrior and called of God. God anointed David at a young age to be King. We also know that David was a shepherd, he killed a lion and a bear, and then he killed Goliath. Before he went out to fight Goliath, he reminded Saul that he had killed a lion and a bear with his bare hands… he said Goliath “will be like one of those”. David’s faith in God’s ability to protect him came from a life of service to God and his family. While it is always remarkable when someone kills a lion with their bare hands, I wonder if actually killing a lion was really that remarkable. In our lives, where the we never encounter lions or bears, it would be News-worthy, yet, in David’s world, protecting sheep from lions and bears and other predators was part of the daily ‘grind’. While I don’t know in scripture, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that all of David’s brothers had, at one time, killed a lion or a bear, perhaps it was part of the rights of passage, like a young man from a hunting family who bags his first deer!

We look to David’s life, and these events as pre-cursors if you will that show that God’s hand was on his life right from the beginning. We see the greatness in the stories and we all draw the conclusion together that these are “kingly” events. But wait, was it those events which qualified David to be King?

Let’s play a game of “what if?” What if, early in David’s life, he fell out of tree and broke his leg. In those days, he would have been left as a cripple, and not able to kill a lion, or a bear, or even Goliath… would that then have disqualified David from being God’s choice? Is the prerequisite for rule the killing of a giant, a bear and a lion? What about you and I? What about the calls of God that are in our lives that perhaps require skills of us that we have missed out on? We are all crippled in our own ways, life sends us challenges or disappointments that can seem to limit us from the call of God.

In my life, I see the times when I wanted to be able to slay the lion, yet I was held back by my fear of the sheep! I couldn't even do the day to day work that would have opened the door to the greatness of God’s calling.

Does this disqualify me? NOPE! I am realizing though, that I might just have to take a few steps backward and attend some lion killing classes! Then there is the seminar on what to do when a bear comes around! Only when I master those skills can I step into the fullness of what God has. Obviously I am speaking metaphorically! I don’t know exactly what these classes are going to look like, but I am excited!