The Unlikely King: David’s Path from Pasture to Palace
2 Samuel 7:8b …I took thee from the sheepcote, to be ruler over my people…
God takes people from the strangest places to do the strangest things! It is definitely safe to say that God and man are not even on the same wavelength. When men train leaders, we typically use conventional means to do so; however, God specializes in using the unconventional! What business has a shepherd boy in a palace anyway? That’s what men would ask, but not God! It is not a lofty pedigree, traditional training, nor conventional methods which guarantee the best results. In more cases than not, success is birthed out of the direst of circumstances, and in places which it was most likely not to have happened. If you could have asked any of David’s brothers what David was preparing for, they would have simply said, “A better shepherd!” Perhaps even David as a boy may have thought that his future career was already laid out for him. It is the author’s opinion that David would have been content with that, as long as he could continue to write and sing about his Lord! However, there came a day when David outgrew his position. God had grown him as much as he was going to grow as a shepherd boy, and so it was time to give him his first giant! Please note that God could not have graduated David, had David not been content beforehand; God wants our contentment to be in Him, not in present-day circumstances. That way, when circumstances change, our foundation stays intact! Godliness with contentment is great gain (1 Tim 6:6). It is when we are content with God and His great wisdom that we are then able to move on to higher ground. In essence, God says, “I need you to be able to trust me before I can move you on! First things first!” With each level there is always going to be the contentment test. However, do not confuse contentment with satisfaction! Contentment is not an end; it is only the means to an end. To be content is not to say, “Let’s just settle for what we have, because it was just meant to be!” Rather, it is to say, “I’m willing to stay where I’m at as long as it takes for the Lord to prepare me for the next level!” There must be a mixture of contentment AND expectancy! If we will do this today, then some tomorrow we’ll find ourselves in places of service we could not have even imagined!
~ Pastor Gary Caudill
God takes people from the strangest places to do the strangest things! It is definitely safe to say that God and man are not even on the same wavelength. When men train leaders, we typically use conventional means to do so; however, God specializes in using the unconventional! What business has a shepherd boy in a palace anyway? That’s what men would ask, but not God! It is not a lofty pedigree, traditional training, nor conventional methods which guarantee the best results. In more cases than not, success is birthed out of the direst of circumstances, and in places which it was most likely not to have happened. If you could have asked any of David’s brothers what David was preparing for, they would have simply said, “A better shepherd!” Perhaps even David as a boy may have thought that his future career was already laid out for him. It is the author’s opinion that David would have been content with that, as long as he could continue to write and sing about his Lord! However, there came a day when David outgrew his position. God had grown him as much as he was going to grow as a shepherd boy, and so it was time to give him his first giant! Please note that God could not have graduated David, had David not been content beforehand; God wants our contentment to be in Him, not in present-day circumstances. That way, when circumstances change, our foundation stays intact! Godliness with contentment is great gain (1 Tim 6:6). It is when we are content with God and His great wisdom that we are then able to move on to higher ground. In essence, God says, “I need you to be able to trust me before I can move you on! First things first!” With each level there is always going to be the contentment test. However, do not confuse contentment with satisfaction! Contentment is not an end; it is only the means to an end. To be content is not to say, “Let’s just settle for what we have, because it was just meant to be!” Rather, it is to say, “I’m willing to stay where I’m at as long as it takes for the Lord to prepare me for the next level!” There must be a mixture of contentment AND expectancy! If we will do this today, then some tomorrow we’ll find ourselves in places of service we could not have even imagined!
~ Pastor Gary Caudill