Trust the Lord and Get to Work (Friday Devotional)

 

When the Philistine drew nearer to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.

- 1 Samuel 17:48

A week ago, we had storms come through, accompanied by strong winds. Our house didn’t sustain any serious damage, but the wind did blow a metric ton of leaves onto our front porch. Lindsey and I observed the mess, but neither of us did anything to deal with it right away.

As the week went on, we started to notice something. Every time anybody went in or out the front door, one or two leaves made their way inside. At first, we attributed it to the kids being careless and tracking the leaves in on their shoes. But it didn’t take long to see that there was basically nothing we could do to keep leaves from trailing inside once that door was open.

Well, nothing except the obvious solution, that is. And so yesterday, I finally grabbed the broom and spent 10 minutes sweeping the front porch. No more leaves, no more mess getting tracked in. Our long national nightmare had come to an end.

Whether it’s leaves on your porch, the weird sound your car’s been making, or the phone call you’ve been dreading returning, everybody’s got some kind of a problem they’d rather avoid than deal with. Maybe, we think, if I ignore it long enough, it’ll just go away on its own. Better to live with the stalemate of things as they are than the unpleasantness of confronting the problem.

In the famous story of David and Goliath, the armies of Israel were living with just that sort of mindset. Every day, the Philistine commanders would send out Goliath, their fearsome champion, to belittle and humiliate the Israelites, demanding they send someone to fight him. And every day, the Israelites would cower, unwilling to meet him on the battlefield.

It took David, God’s anointed, to stand up when others stood back. Armed not with the king’s armor but with only his simple shepherd’s tools, David rushed to the front lines when others were unwilling to do so. Because David trusted in the Lord, he was willing to confront a problem that others would only avoid.

Not every problem is as big as Goliath (or as small as leaves on a porch). But the principle remains true no matter the size of your issue: waiting for things to work themselves out on their own rarely gets the job done. Maturity means facing the questions, the conversations, and the problems that others would rather dodge. It means counting on God to give you strength and then putting that strength to good use.

Wishing problems away won’t make things better. So instead, trust the Lord and get to work.