More to The Story - Chapter 11 - 1st & 2nd Samuel

YOU CAN'T BE SOMEONE ELSE

“I cannot go in these." (1 Samuel 17:39)


5 SMOOTH STONES

I have been a Christian for 32 years. I have tried to pray as the great “prayer warriors” have prayed. I have tried to preach as the great preachers have preached. I have tried to behave and talk and live as the “greats” in the Christian world. Every attempt at trying to be someone else has been a wreck. Even when it “worked”, it didn’t work because it wasn’t me.  

You and I need to be you and I, not someone else. God wants you to grow into the you that God intends, and that may look nothing like the “great” Christians you admire. 

David volunteered to take on Goliath one on one, mano e mano. Winner take all. King Saul, impressed with David’s bravado, gave David his armor to put on. It didn’t fit. It was awkward, It got in the way. It was Saul’s battle suit, not his. David was a shepherd who could handle himself against predators. David took off the armor, went to the stream, found five smooth stones, put them in his pouch, relied on what he knew, and had practiced a million times.  

Had David tried to be Saul, we would not be reading about David 3,000 years later.
 
Your children, your parents, your spouse, your church, your friends, your community, the world, need you, not someone else. God growing in and through who you were created to be is a person who is is loveable and who will be seen by someone, probably many someones, as a person in whom Christ lives and that will be a compelling life, a joyful life and an eternal life. Go to the stream and find your smooth stones.

PRAYER

"Lord, forgive me for trying be that which I am not intended to be. Lead me to become the best me, the one you chose to create before the beginning of time. Amen"