What if it took more than one stone?

Last Sunday, the youth pastor at our church preached on David and Goliath. During the sermon, the question kept popping into my head, "What if David hadn't defeated Goliath on the first try?" Don't ask me why, but sometimes these thoughts pop into my head. 

Tonight, as I was studying for Sunday School tomorrow and Awanas this week, I was reminded of this question. It got me to thinking. What if Goliath hadn't fell the first time? Would we still teach it to our children? Would we still encourage them by telling them that God is on their side? That He can overcome any situation no matter how difficult it may seem? The answer I keep coming back to is, yes, we should.

You see the miracle of the story shouldn't be focused on the fact that Goliath was killed. Yes, that's awesome and God totally made it happen. But, you know what else He made happen? David's courage. And, that's a miracle in itself. 

You see, David was a scrawny little thing. He was no where near the size of Goliath and he wasn't even in the army. He wasn't trained to go against Goliath. He could have easily said, "Nope. Swerve." or the Biblical equivalent. But, he didn't. He refused to back down. He knew God had prepared him for this moment regardless of how it turned out. 

David had no clue how the end would turn out, but he had faith. Faith enough to know that God would take care of him regardless of the outcome. He knew God had plans for his life and he used his past experiences to guide him. He had killed a bear and a lion for Pete's sake! 

But, see, here's the thing. Sometimes Goliath's don't fall down with a single stone. Sometimes they don't fall down with a thousand stones. Sometimes they just stand, hovering, waiting to knock you when you're down. And, what do we do? Do we just sit there and wait for another David to come and fight for us or do we continue fighting for as long as it takes? 

How long do you think David would have spent throwing stones had the first one not worked? I mean, he had five but do you think he would have went back for more? What if he used up all the pebbles he could find? I think David would continue having the courage to stand and fight. Why? Because he knew that God was there. He knew that God had been there before and would continue to be there again. 

Life isn't fair. Sometimes it tries to knock us down. Sometimes our Goliath's won't fall. Sometimes we'll be the ones trying to put our Goliath's back together because we don't have the courage to live without them. But, God says, "Look. There's the bear you slayed before and here's the lion. You do what I ask and I'll take care of the rest." The only question that remains is will you continue fighting even if Goliath doesn't fall?

Let nothing be wasted.

"When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted." - John 6:12

Over the course of the last couple of weeks, I have been working my way through the New Testament. Because of this, I have been re-reading parables and stories I have heard dozens of times in sermons, including the feeding of the five thousand. 

Although I have read and heard this story and it shows up in every Gospel, I found something new the other day. Yes, it is super cool and fantastic that Jesus fed all of those people and that is super important in giving us deeper insight into God as our provider, but the part that stuck out to me was Matthew 14:20 ("They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over"). Why? Why did Jesus need left-overs? For some reason, this just bothered me. I could not understand why Jesus who could easily conjure up His own bread would be concerned with left-overs. Couldn't He just make them disappear? 

So, why did Jesus want to collect the left-overs? The good thing about the Gospels is that a lot of the same stories are told in all four, the feeding of the five thousand being one. So, I perused through Mark and Luke. I still found nothing on why these left-overs were collected. Then, I found the verse mentioned above in John ("Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted"). Although this verse shows no indication as to what the left-overs were used for, it does tell me what Jesus thought about the left-overs. 

Jesus knew something that we don't. You see, to get to these left-overs, Jesus had to first break the bread. Like physically, take five different loaves of bread and break them. Then, He fed the people. Then, He told His disciples to go round up the extras. Maybe the extras were all in one spot or maybe they were scattered among the five thousand. We do not know, but He still wanted them gathered. 

Now, for just a second, I want you to think about yourself as the bread. Have you been broken lately? Not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or all at the same time? Maybe you have been hurt by friends, a boyfriend, girlfriend, family members, or even the church (I know these are all so shocking). But, did you ever think that these people aren't really in control of the breaking? If Job in the Old Testament is any indication, sometimes God allows a little breaking. Sometimes He allows us to feel shattered. Sometimes He allows bad things to happen so that He can use us. And, that's okay. It's okay to let God break you. 

But, here is the comfort. In this story, He collects the left-overs, the broken pieces of bread, whether they were all in one spot or scattered throughout. He gathers them, because He says, "Let nothing be wasted." You might be like me. You might be searching for a reason as to why the left-overs need to be collected, but maybe we should focus more on the fact that the need was there regardless of if we understand what the need is. He was not going to let the left-over, broken pieces of bread be wasted. That is our comfort: Jesus will not let anything be wasted. We may not know the reason. We may not understand the reason that twelve basketfuls of broken pieces need to be collected. The point is that with Jesus there is always a reason. He will not let your brokenness be wasted. So, be willing to break. Be willing to say, "God, break me so you can use me." The bread was no good in five whole pieces just as, sometimes, we cannot truly be used until we are vulnerable and broken. 

So, be hopeful. Let yourself be broken for none of the scattered pieces will be wasted. 

Doer: the person who does something

"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." - James 1:22

Nothing ruins your plans to go to sleep early like being wide awake. Well actually, it's being so wide awake that you decide to check social media and see an adorable photo of a super sweet guy kissing a baby (if you're reading this, aca-awkward). It's in that moment that I realized I was not at Passion anymore.

For those of you who don't know, I spent the weekend in Atlanta at Passion. There I got so close to God that it felt like me and God were in our own little bubble. But, now, the bubble seems to have burst. I feel like a little kid who tries to blow this really huge bubble only to have their sibling stick their finger through it and end up with a sticky face.

But, then, something happened. I opened Pandora. I don't really know why. It was either that or play "Dear John, " by T Swizzle, and considering I haven't listened to that song in about a year (not on purpose anyway), I decided to leave it be. But, anyway, I digress. So, I opened Pandora and my Andrew Ripp radio was playing. He has an amazing voice, but that wasn't the best part. The best part was that his song "Peace Like a River" came on. No, this is not a Christian song, but one of my best friends shared it with me just because (without knowing I had the some of the toughest weeks of my life). In this moment, it was pure comfort. Because you know who planned that song just then, God. 

It was in that moment that I realized the bubble was still there. God is just waiting on me to continue drawing closer to Him. This past weekend we sang many amazing songs. One song repeated the lines "I draw near, I draw near to you. You draw near, you draw near to me." God didn't stop chasing after me this weekend. I just needed a reminder that I needed to draw near to Him. He is still surrounding me with comfort and peace just as He did this weekend.

The only problem is that when you aren't surrounded by 20,000 other people who are worshipping with you, it becomes a little harder to focus. For those of you who don't know me, my mind runs a hundred miles a minute. I'm usually thinking about either how attractive some boy is or how much is on my to-do list, and if it's the month of January, my birthday. This makes me sound really self-absorbed. Maybe I should clarify, these are typically what occupy my mind when I'm alone. When I'm surrounded by others, I'm usually good at focusing on them, okay I'm alright at focusing on them. Unless it's January, then I'm probably thinking, "Should I invite them to my birthday dinner or nah?" But, anyway, hundred miles a minute. I get so caught up in myself, even when I'm reading my Bible or praying. But this weekend, I was surrounded by people all doing the same thing: drawing closer to God. And, we learned a lot. But just like all that has been learned, it needs to be applied. God reminded me tonight that the things I learned at Passion needed to be applied in order for them to mean something.

We all go through these points in our life. We all have a really awesome church service and we leave and that's about it. We don't carry that feeling over for the rest of the week. We don't let what we learn encourage us to apply it. And, if I've learned anything in my education classes, application is an awesome learning tool. Students thrive off of it. Not applying something, is not okay. As a future teacher, if my  students know how to work a pedigree but have no idea how to determine the percentage of someone being born color-blind or how it could impact future generations, what does it matter? What does it matter if God is trying to teach us something and we don't apply it? I'm speaking as much to myself as anybody. So much so, that this weekend I told my family group at Passion that my relationship with Christ was suffering because of my lack of application. I read my Bible daily and attend church, lead Bible Study, and go to FCA every week, and God teaches me all of these awesome things. But I seldom apply them. I find comfort in them. I write them down in pretty fonts. I hang them on my bulletin board, and there they stay. I refuse to do this anymore and I don't want this for you either. I don't want whoever is reading this to say, "Yeah, that's such a great idea" and then never give it another thought. So can we all just make a promise, that we will start applying things? That we will let God use us for whatever? That we will draw near to God so that He can draw near to us? I am out of room to pin things on my bulletin board but I am not out of things to apply. Things that will make me a better Christian. Things that will help me draw near to Christ.

We need to stop quoting and start doing.

Be the person who does something about what God is trying to teach them. Be a doer.