{"id":4561,"date":"2023-02-10T21:20:29","date_gmt":"2023-02-11T03:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4561"},"modified":"2023-02-10T21:20:29","modified_gmt":"2023-02-11T03:20:29","slug":"devotional-on-1-samuel-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-1-samuel-30\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on 1 Samuel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-_y-Mu7GgLqc\/XeWqsyyjO8I\/AAAAAAABC9w\/ar55z3U2f8UfxN-GJ4Rqt-D1_2UIEO5sgCKgBGAsYHg\/s1600\/100_4101.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"901\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2015 &#8211; Beeds Lake State Park &#8211; Hampton, IA<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nThe slings and stones details of life<br \/>\n1 Samuel 17: I&#8217;m ready to go and fight this Philistine.<br \/>\nDavid and Goliath &#8212; now this is a good story!  It\u2019s a story we\u2019ve heard all our lives.  It\u2019s part of our shorthand vocabulary.   When we want to describe the little guy taking on something big and threatening we just say, &#8220;it\u2019s David verses Goliath&#8221; and everyone nods understandingly.  David&#8217;s very likely a young man rather than a little boy.  Most Bible scholars say he&#8217;s in his 20&#8217;s when this takes place.  The story&#8217;s rich in devotional material.  However, before I get into the story, I\u2019d like to look at the big picture for a moment.  Saul, rejected by God, is on his way out.  David has been secretly anointed as his replacement.  The people love Saul and are faithful to him.  He\u2019s proven to be a solid and fearless military leader.  David&#8217;s best known as a musician and shepherd.   These things hardly qualify him to be king of Israel.  Everyone assumes that Saul&#8217;s son will succeed him as king, but even if they thought otherwise, a shepherd like David wouldn&#8217;t be a likely candidate in anyone&#8217;s mind.  Thus we come to the confrontation at Oak Valley, where the Philistines and the Israelites are having a tense standoff.  David&#8217;s victory over Goliath is the perfect way for God to introduce their future king to the people of Israel.  Never again will David be considered to be a nice young man who plays the harp.  I don\u2019t think David\u2019s thinking about any of this, but I believe God is.  There\u2019s lots of other good stuff in this story, but right off I see that the Lord\u2019s not only working in the details of slings and stones, but he sees the big picture too.  Today he\u2019s helping me with the slings and stones details of my life, but he never loses sight of his own over all goals and how my life fits into them.<br \/>\nTake Away: I tend to focus on only the immediate concerns of life.  The Lord, though, not only sees that but he also sees the big picture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The slings and stones details of life 1 Samuel 17: I&#8217;m ready to go and fight this Philistine. David and Goliath &#8212; now this is a good story! It\u2019s a story we\u2019ve heard all our lives. It\u2019s part of our shorthand vocabulary. When we want to describe the little guy taking on something big and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1473,7],"tags":[114,480,508,651,654],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4561"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14256,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561\/revisions\/14256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}