Henry Williams

Hi Five Oakers, The weekend is almost here and I have a few things I want to share with you.

DavidStory-pt1_Slides.001

The Weekend

This weekend we look at David and Goliath. It is the quintessential children’s Bible story, at least for most boys (and a few girls, too). David is only a kid, there's a menacing enemy, and he's a giant. It can hardly get any better than that, yet it does. There's a sling and a stone. What kid doesn't go through a slingshot phase in life. Best of all, though, is the decapitation. What boy doesn’t want to see the picture of David holding Goliath’s head? Yes, it's morbid, but many boys (and, I'm sure, some girls) are fascinated by the whole scene.

But the children's version (and most popular uses of this story) are not enough. The real story goes so much deeper than you can imagine. If you understand it within the story of God it will give you so much more than you bargained for when it comes to needed courage. And rightly understood, this account will help you focus and face the most important giants and then take on the most crucial opportunities that your fears now block.

FYI

Jonathan Malesic on "Don't Search for 'Purpose.' You Will Fail. The big lie behind a Venn diagram meme"

Few of us will ever find our meritocratic purpose, much less “OWN it!” That shouldn’t mean we’re failures. Often, just standing in the PAID circle is a triumph. That’s certainly true for day laborers, whose purpose on the job is to make each other’s work bearable. Their rule is, “Carry your end of the load.” If we all adopted that rule, then once we’ve carried our end, we can meet at the water cooler, share a laugh, and scheme to knock off early. Being human together is purpose enough.

Joshua Reich on "Praying for Your Kids"

Let me say something that is hard to hear and doesn’t get said enough: God might be most glorified through your child’s rebellion. He might draw more people to Himself that way. He might draw you as a parent to Himself that way, and ultimately His plan to draw your child to Himself might be through a long, dark season of rebellion.

One More Thing

Malcolm Gladwell in his book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants:

Courage is not something that you already have…Courage is what you earn when you’ve been through the tough times and you discover they aren’t so tough after all.

The Weekend

Do you ever feel too ordinary, too marginal, to be used by God to influence your children, your friends, your company, the political landscape or issues of justice and compassion? What kind of person does God use to influence and bring change in lives and in our world? A person like David.

David was, hands down, the greatest king of Israel. And he plays large in the story of Jesus. Yet when we first meet David, he is considered by those who know him to be ordinary. He is ignored and marginalized in a large family as the eighth son of a Jesse. If Samuel were to choose the next king himself, the next king would have looked and led much like Saul. Israel would again have a failed king. But God saw into David's heart and he knew he could work with what he saw.

What God saw in David he can see in you. That's what we'll be talking about this weekend in our David Story series as we focus on David's anointing as king in 1 Samuel.

FYI

Rob Schwarzwalder and Pat Fagan on "On conservative religious activism, the numbers speak for themselves"

Harvard professor Robert Putnam makes an assertion about what he terms “organized religion,” its agenda and the use of its “resources.” Specifically: “The obvious fact is that over the last 30 years, most organized religion has focused on issues regarding sexual morality, such as abortion, gay marriage, all of those. I’m not saying if that’s good or bad, but that’s what they’ve been using all their resources for. This is the most obvious point in the world. It’s been entirely focused on issues of homosexuality and contraception and not at all focused on issues of poverty.” This is utter nonsense, to the point of absurdity....