David's awareness of God

Daniel in the Lions Den by Antonio Zanchi (1631—1722). Wikimedia Commons, Private Collection

What if you’re up against a wall of despair and can’t see any ray of light to rid you of the despair of illness….. what then?

Full of cold, after two days wrapped in blankets, I had to go out at the crack of dawn in the freezing fog to take a 1 hour train route to get to Sunday School as there were two boys 18 and 4 who both needed a teacher.  

Didn’t I have something to give? When I saw their sparkling eyes I knew the stories the 4 year would love…. David looking after his sheep, making the fold safe; feeling God’s presence in the cold of the scary nights out in the desserts wastes where coyotes, lions and bears were on the prowl.

The little boy became David keeping these animals at bay with his catapult. David we are told had killed lions and bears. When his compatriots needed a champion against the brute of a man called Goliath. Goliath threatened them. David was sure he could get rid of him in the same way as he had protected his sheep from the lions.

Saul wanted to offer his some protective covering! I threw my duvet coat over the little boy.  Saul’s amour must have been the same size. We laughed …. he couldn’t move. He stood up and threw if off and looked up to the ceiling as from this height Goliath would have been looking down at him and he was defiant; he raised his arm to throw a stone and Goliath collapsed.

That was fun and we went back to the sheep on the carpet and read how David had then been asked to be king after this, as he knew God’s presence would always be with him making him strong.

After this but before going home we sang:

Shepherd, show me how to go
O’er the hillside steep,
How to gather, how to sow,—
How to feed Thy sheep; *

---and we all felt blessed by David's awareness of God.

* From “Feed My Sheep”
Mary Baker Eddy
Hymn 456