Day Twenty-Five

DREAM IN PIECES

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.

—1 SAMUEL 17:37 NIV

God knows me. He knows you. He knows we need dreams in pieces because we would be too scared of the whole puzzle. Had I known I’d be an author and a speaker back when I was in college studying to be an elementary school teacher, I probably would have crawled under my covers and stayed there for a year or five. I’m here today because of the little steps and the brave moments dotted throughout my writing career that have grown into this.

He knows we need dreams in pieces because we would be too scared of the whole puzzle.

I think of King David, way back when he was a kid checking on his brothers in the battle against the Philistines. He found that everyone was scared of Goliath, this beast of a man who was fighting for the other army.

Young David the shepherd told King Saul he would go against Goliath. Everyone was stunned because David was a kid, and the rest of the Israelite army—adult men—were afraid of him. David’s response shows us the importance of those daily steps of courage that lead to the bigger story.

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.” (1 Samuel 17:34–36 NIV)

David, as a shepherd boy, fought a lion. And a bear. And rescued his sheep. He never killed the lion in preparation for the bear. He didn’t kill the bear in preparation for Goliath. He just chose to be brave at every turn—to do his job and protect the sheep. And as the challenges grew in scope, so did David’s belief in the ways God had uniquely created him. More importantly, David wholly believed in who God is and that God had a role for him to play that would require courage. The same is true for me and you.

BE BRAVE: What’s one area of your life where you know you are being brave right now?