13So as David stood there among his brothers, Samuel took the flask of olive oil he had brought and anointed David with the oil. And the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David from that day on. Then Samuel returned to Ramah.
Today we are looking at (a fictional) letter from David to his sister Zeruiah based on 1 Samuel 16:13 above.
Dearest Sister,
Ah, the house felt warmer, the laughter richer, and the burdens lighter during your brief sojourn back to our humble abode. Your presence, like a soft melody, lingers in the corners of our home and in the recesses of my heart. I felt your protective gaze when Eliab’s words sought to pierce me like arrows when I did my chores after dinner. You’ve always been the shield to my sword, haven’t you?
The youngest son of any family always bears two distinctions, no matter if it is true or not: He is considered to be both spoiled and uninformed. Usually little is expected of him. Inevitably, he displays fewer characteristics of leadership than other children in the family. As a child, he never leads. He only follows, for he has no one younger on whom to practice leadership.
Kith and kin cannot always tell when a man is grown, even when looking straight at him. Only you would say that I am grown. To everyone, I am always a kid. That’s why all the “grown men” worked near their father’s farm, while the kid was sent on treks into the mountains to graze the family’s small flock of sheep. But I am not complaining.
Spare time for a sheep-herder is abundant on rich mountain plateaus where sheep can graze for days in one sequestered meadow. But as time passed and days became weeks, it became very lonely. The feeling of friendlessness that always roamed inside became magnified. So I played the harp a great deal. And I often sang to God. When these activities failed to comfort, I gathered up a pile of stones and, one by one, swung them at a distant tree with great fury. I engaged in many such solitary battles that I could tell every rock precisely where to go.
Once, while singing my lungs out to God, I spied a living enemy: a huge bear, and he was after a small lamb of mine. I lunged forward, and the bear changed direction and charged at me with foaming madness. I reached into my pocket for a stone and swung it through the air to kill the beast, right between its eyes.
I wrote this song after that, “My little lamb, I am your shepherd, and God is mine!” Someday I will sing it for you.
Do you find it strange that after the remarkable day, the day came the prophet, Samuel, with his horn of oil; he anointed me, and yet, life resumed its usual rhythm. The sheep still need tending, the meals still need preparation, and Eliab… well, he still needs humbling. But something within me has shifted, like a seed in fertile soil, waiting for its time to break through the surface.
Is it not peculiar, sister, that a touch from God can leave everything looking the same, yet feeling entirely different? When God touches our lives, should we expect an immediate, visible transformation? Or is His work often something deeper, something that others might overlook but is transformative nonetheless?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
With deepest affection,
David
Think about your own experience and answer this, “Does God’s touch always make a quick, big change we can see, or does He often work in deeper, quieter ways we might not notice right away?”
[Do you know?] David wrote Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd…” In 1 Samuel 17:34-37, David not only fought a bear, he even fought hand to hand with a lion. In both cases, he attributed his victories to God.
About 80% of the letter above was from Gene Edwards’s “Tales of the Three Kings”
It took me a while in my life things don’t always goes my way especially if it’s for my own selfish desire. No one’s life is perfect but with God it can be. When I was younger I always complain why isn’t my life as good as this and that person. We all good through our own trials and obstacles in life and I’m truly grateful today that Gods put me though those darkest day and has pulled me out into the light. When I faithfully pray to my God and surrender myself to allow him to guide me, I find that I am able to see God’s love and plans he has for are beyond my imagination. I’m truly Blessed with the relationships with my kids that I thought I wasn’t able to have. My mom no longer steals from me for a very long time from what I remembered. I have an amazing job that I’m able to not only provide financially but my time to my family. I’m in good health and good spirits to provide that smile and comfort to my family. I’m able to have compassion to help those that are still suffering from a disease that I recovered from and can show a new way of life that God’s Blessed me with. Things aren’t perfect today and there are still some small obstacles I face but I can truly say it’s way better than I ever imagine. I pray for Joey that he can be good in spirit and that maybe one day he can allow God in his life so that he can be a good father to Joshua that I know he can be. I pray that God continues to Bless me with compassion and understanding so that I can share that with those I encounter. Have a Blessed day everyone 🙏🏻💕
I used to swear a lot..not to be vulgar, just because my brothers and friends did. That went away almost overnight after I gave my life to Christ.
Other changes took years. The Holy Spirit gradually gave me a desire to pursue holiness (however imperfectly), and even transformed my desires. Slowly I no longer craved the approval/applause of my parents/peers and can now love people for no other reason but that God loves them.
I’m impatient for some change (ironically, I’m impatient to develop more patience) but trust that the Spirit will complete that good work that he’s started in me.
I would have to say that, though God’s touch certainly does at times make a big, quick change that all can see, more often than not, He works in deeper, quieter ways which go unnoticed right away. In my own experience, as I look back over the course of my life, there were many times that it seemed to me that God was not working at all. However, in retrospect, I can see that He has been working all along🙂 I often think back to a particular point in my life which led me to become bitter and resentful toward God. I lost both my parents at a very early age, and then, at the age of 17, my older brother passed away from brain cancer. We were very close, and I was devastated. I became angry at God, and that is the point where my alcoholism and addiction came into full swing. I made a conscious decision to live my life from then on doing whatever I thought I wanted to do, and to care about nothing. Looking back now, though, I can see that in a strange way, that was the catalyst in my life that would eventually, (about 20 years later actually,) draw me to God. If my brother had not died, I may not have gone as off the rails as I did, in which case I never would have met my daughters’ mom, in which case I may never have come to experience the powerlessness over my addiction which led me to seek God in the first place. I have no idea really what would have been, but in a peculiar way I am grateful today for all the experiences, good and bad, that God has allowed me to go through. He is good, and always working, whether we see it or not.
From yours truly today
I shared some of this at my baptism testimonial with RP family. If I looked back I think maybe God touches me first when I was in college.
A friend brought me to bible study. I had read a bit of the bible and I had the common questions. Why would a loving God advocate the death of an entire village; why slavery; why eternal hell?
The answers I was given was not satisfactory but perhaps it was because I already formed an opinion and the answers could not penetrate all my youthful pride. I was not humbled enough to be open to God.
God didn’t give up on me. He tempered me instead. Set me on trials. Work with me through the years. Through many events, I realized my limitations and admit that there are things I’m not able to achieve on my own.
The Father gave me enough rope to make my own mistakes and at a critical point I called to Him to save me. And there He was, Father never left my side. He was there to pick up the pieces. As we would for our children who cry out to us, He was there when I cried out.
I think years of tempering made me fundamentally different from who I was in my 20s. I hope that I am a better child in the Lord’s eyes. I am still a sinner, but I don’t stray too far and always quick to reach back for the Father’s hand.
Each child has a different personality and must be taught differently. So the Father temper each in a different way. Some time He can be quite harsh and sometime slow nudging over decades of time.
His time is infinite. To Him all our trials are trivially short. A temporary anguish for a better outcome. I believe I’m still a work in progress.
Father, I thank You for Your work in me. I can’t wait to see how it will turn out. Maybe I won’t know the true result until we meet again…I can’t wait for that day!
I’ve experienced both an immediate, visible transformation through touch and a profound, gradual touch. I recall moments when His touch inspired me to take immediate action. It was as if powerful forces were propelling me forward. I couldn’t just stay still; I felt compelled to act right away. One of the actions that I still vividly remember is when I promptly cleaned up my closet. LOL However, God also worked gradually, guiding me through various experiences that ultimately led to transformation and sanctification.
I genuinely believe that God’s touch works in deeper, quieter ways we may not even notice right away. The build up is what creates the radical change within one’s life. How something so small as hanging at Jumble’s, attending church here and there, coming to CRU events, etc was watering a seed within me to accept God into my life. Lord I thank you for guiding me to You and Your community. I pray to continue the good daily habits You have instilled into me as well as replace the bad habits that may take me away from You. To have you guide my words and actions that may be small but be huge for Your Kingdom.
-John
God’s touch upon our lives can have both big and powerful impacts as well as deep and gentle changes. For me personally, it depends on the season of my life. God has carried me through big challenging times of loss, grief, caring for my family, and great uncertainty. All the mean while, He also continues to gently renew me daily. In today’s reading,
I am reminded that God works in mysterious ways. His ways are not our ways. In His sovereignty and power, He isn’t always in the wind nor the fire, but a gentle whisper that requires us to quiet our noisy world to listen carefully to His voice.
I definitely think God’s ways are subtle, but when there’s change, it’s always a big, transformative change. Sometimes we often think God is not working in our lives when we don’t see immediate results; however, he is always listening and waiting on His own timing. I’m reminded that He is always in control and to be patient.
God works in many ways. It may not seem like it at first but he is constantly working and guiding us. He always has a plan. It is set this way so we trust in him and build our relationship with God. For me, It allows me to have discipline and trains me to believe in him. Over the years I look back and my dark times when I believed he was not there, there was always a greater outcome. The good was always greater than the bad for he was watching over me. I believe this can be related with the past question “ How can I avoid being blinded by my own assumptions and stay open to God’s surprising ways? ” The connection is God often works in deeper, quieter ways we do not notice at first, but then we realize in the long run that he was always there. That being said he need to trust in him.