While on a pilgrimage walk on the Camino de Santiago (St. James Way) in Spain, I asked some of the most committed and courageous faith-driven business leaders I know to guest contribute to Purposed worKING. Enjoy! – Rusty
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“But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”
Looking around our companies, our families, our cities or the world at large, most people are able to easily identify messy problems in desperate need of fixing. Be they economic issues, armed conflicts, physical diseases, bad leadership, dysfunctional systems or processes, there are a lot of areas in our world that don’t match “God’s will”. The question is, once we’ve identified those things that are out of alignment, what do we do?
I was re-reading the story of David and Goliath this week, and God illuminated something that I had not seen before. King Saul and all the Israelites were lined up to face the Philistines and their champion and every day Goliath would taunt them. The entire Israelite army could see ‘the problem’. And I would bet that each of them believed that God could, in His power, liberate them from oppression. I would also bet that a good number of the Israelites believed that God wanted to see them liberated. But, it was only David who believed that God could use him to accomplish the liberation.
When we encounter messy problems it is critical that we ask God to infuse us with not just his heart but also
his vision, stirring up our faith for not just what God could do, but what God can and wants to do through us.
Reference: – 1 Samuel 17: 34-37
Ben Patterson