It Could Have Been Any Field!

 (Photo Credit  -- Valley of Elah -- by Reid Bader)

"It could have been any field, anywhere, just like out here,” and Reid waved his arm in the direction of our back pasture. “There were no tourists, no signs, no markers to designate that anything special had happened. It was simply a field like any other.” 

Yet the field Reid stood on was a special spot for it was the place where a fearless young shepherd named David picked up five stones and fought a boastful, nearly 10-ft-tall giant named Goliath.  

Our oldest son had returned from a trip to the Holy Land, and I asked him that morning, as he whisked through our house, to share one moment he remembered from his latest travels.

That was the moment he shared.

And it’s a moment we’ve read about for thousands of years.

But it could have happened on any field.

A simple remark, a profound thought. For God fights daily on the fertile fields of our lives, too, and we have our own stories to tell. Stories of battles against cancer and victories over fear and struggles with forgiveness and fights against lost hope. Stories that matter. Stories told with raw honesty that encourage others.   

“David said to Saul, ‘Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.’”

Like the battles fought on the field of our own lives, our stories, too, can help others not to lose heart when faced with tough times.  

David’s story still encourages me today. Ours can do the same for someone else.

³² David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”

³³ Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”

³⁴ 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, ³⁵ 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. ³⁶ 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.

 ³⁷ 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.”

 So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him (50).

1 Samuel 17