Palace Or The Pasture

Palace or the Pasture

1 Samuel 16:11 KJV

[11] And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither.

Gene Edwards, in "tale of three kings” speaks of the isolation of David.

David was the youngest son...

The youngest child generally two distinctions...

1. spoiled

2. uninformed.

In David's day, very little would have been expected of him.

He displays fewer characteristics of leadership than his brothers. After all, he never lead.

He only follows, he has no one younger on whom to practice leadership.

The seven older sons of Jesse worked near their father’s farm.

The youngest was sent on treks into the mountains to graze the family’s small flock of sheep.

This youngest son would leave home and carried two things: a sling and a small, guitarlike instrument.

Spare time for a sheepherder is abundant...

The sheep would graze for days in the green meadow.

As days became weeks, david became very lonely.

There was a feeling of friendlessness inside him.

It would perhaps rise up and cause him to weep from isolation...

In his boredom, He would play his harp to pass the hours... As his harp playing improved, he added singing...

His voice changed over the years and became strong...

When these activities failed to comfort him...

I can see in my minds eye David as he gathered up a pile of stones and, one by one, placed them in a sling an pd twirled it overhead as he swung them at a distant tree...

When the rock pile was depleted, he would walk to the blistered tree, reassemble his rocks, and designate another leafy enemy at yet a farther distance.

I'm sure he had many victories over many trees...

In his loneliness, David worked on something else also...

David loved God...

At night, when all the sheep lay sleeping and he sat staring at the dying fire, he would strum upon his harp and break into quiet song...

He sang the ancient hymns of his forefathers.

While he sang he wept... and while he wept, he praised...

The distance mountains lifted up his praise and tears, passing them on to next mountains, and so on until they eventually reached the ears of God.

When David was not praising and cry he tended to each and every sheep and lamb...

When not occupied with his flock, he swung his sling and swung it again and again until he could tell every rock precisely where to go.

One day, while singing to God, angels, sheep, and passing clouds, he spied a living enemy:

It was a bear!

David lunged forward. Both found themselves moving toward the same small object, a young lamb...

Shepard and bear stopped halfway and whirled to face one another...

“Even as he instinctively reached into his pocket for a stone, the young man realized, “ I am not afraid.”

Meanwhile, brown lightning on mighty, furry legs charged at the shepherd with foaming madness. Impelled by the strength of youth, the young man married rock to leather, and soon a brook-smooth pebble whined through the air to meet that charge.”

“A few moments later, the man—not quite so young as a moment before—picked up the little lamb and said, “I am your shepherd, and God is mine.”

And so, long into the night, he wove the day’s saga into a song...

He hurled that hymn to the skies again and again until he had taught the melody and words to every angel that had ears...

Worship

It has been said, what is done in darkness, will come out in the light...

We tend to lean towards the negative when this point is made...

We seem to believe that out sins will find us out...

If all you do in the dark is sin that is true...

That's not the only things happening in the dark...

Psalm 119:62 KJV

[62] At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgments.

Acts 16:25 KJV

[25] And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.

I've come to tell someone, midnight is what you make it!

Those lonely times are what you make them...

That isolation is not a time of punishment, is a time of preparation...

I wish I could get a witness...

More importantly I wish I could get someone to understand that God is more interested in preparation, than punishment...

When you see as an end, God sees as a beginning...

Worship

Peter thought it was over.... Denied and disconnected....

But Jesus said, it's in that lonely time that I prepared you for Pentecost...