life. faithful.

  The story of David and Goliath is a familiar one, even if you don't really know a whole lot of stories from the bible. It's referenced all the time, a picture of standing up to the giants in your life, facing your problems head-on, knowing you can conquer anything you come up against. Or at least, that's the common understanding. We're shown David, a young man, who isn't afraid to fight the giant no one else will stand against. And on the surface, that's true. But what really matters is what we see when we dig a little bit deeper. Yes, we're shown David. We're told he was a young man (though I tend to think he was a bit older than is usually depicted, possibly closer to 20) who was home tending his father's sheep instead of serving in the army. We know that God had used his time in the fields protecting the sheep as preparation for what he would face--he had killed both a lion and a bear, and he was willing to stand against the giant. It's easy...

I have to say, I love our little church. We're a small group, one in which everyone is considered family. I love these people more than I can explain, and I trust each one of them without doubt. One of the most amazing things about our group, for me, is that our Sunday mornings are open discussions, and nothing's off topic. Right now, we're working our way through the Bible for the second time. Our first time through took about 3 years. We just passed the 1-year mark at the beginning of this month--and we just wrapped up II Samuel yesterday. 10 books down...55 to go. I'm thinking this time through might take longer than 3 years. On that note, yesterday Pop said that David is painted in two very different lights in the scriptures: saint and scoundrel. We're all familiar with the stories that show him as a saint. He was, after all, anointed as the future King of Israel while he was still just a boy, watching over the sheep in his dad's fields. He faced a ...