My dear friend, God has equipped you for your journey. Your experiences and education have shaped you into who you are, and no one else can fill your role in His Kingdom’s work. Reflect on your own journey and how you were equipped. Even times of adversity are part of the equipping.
Every journey is unique! It’s taken me a number of years, but I can see God’s equipping as a pattern through my life. I may have ripped my jeans every time I climbed a barbed wire fence, but God wasn’t preparing me to be a farmer. Instead, He taught me hard work, perseverance, and determination growing up on a farm. In my play time, I would line up my stuffed animals (and my brother if he would humor me) to teach them. I also liked to play gin owner when my brother and I play farmed. I was in charge of the revenue. Now, I work in finance in higher education. He was equipping me even them, growing my faith with each experience and adversity.
David was a shepherd, but God was preparing him for the fight of a lifetime that is still discussed thousands of years later. Sometimes, other people don’t see it. Saul didn’t see it in David; he didn’t look the part.
Lately, I have reflected on difficult relationships with others and realize that their personalities are a reflection of how God made them to be for their journey. Those individuals would not have been equipped for their journey if they had acted like I wanted them to be. It has eased my hurt feelings, and I can see, now, how God has used that trait in their lives. What I saw as a mar was actually God’s intentional shaping, preparing them for their unique journey with the personality that it required. Like Saul, I just didn’t see the potential initially.
It’s my journey; it’s your journey; it’s our journey; it’s God’s journey. Walk with me and look for how God is equipping me and give me grace. I will do my very best to do the same with you.
1 Saul 33 – 37:
But Saul replied, “You cannot go out against this Philistine to fight him. You are just a boy, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”
David replied, “Your servant has been tending his father’s sheep, and whenever a lion or a bear came and carried off a lamb from the flock, I went after it, struck it down, and delivered the lamb from its mouth. If it reared up against me, I would grab it by its fur, strike it down, and kill it. Your servant has killed lions and bears; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.”
David added, “The LORD, who delivered me from the claws of the lion and the bear, will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”
“Go,” said Saul, “and may the LORD be with you.”