The choice of God towards the little shepherd David
Moved by the readings of the book of Samuel, I felt motivated to meditate and pray upon the choice of God towards the little shepherd David. After personal prayer and meditation upon those passages of the book of Samuel I was amazed to see how God makes his choices, mainly when those choices made by God are towards small and weak creatures like us. I could not leave it to myself only; therefore I would like to share with you.
From the book of Samuel we see (1 Samuel 16: 6) “When they arrived, he looked at Eliab and thought, ‘This must be Yahweh’s anointed now before him’, but Yahweh said to Samuel, ‘Take no notice of his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him; God does not see as human beings see; they look at appearances but Yahweh looks at the heart'”.
With human eyes we can’t see the greatness of God’s work towards us
We always believe that only the most capable, the stronger, the cleverest, the smartest, only those will be suitable for God’s plans and His work. As we see in the reading, even the faithful man, the prophet of the Lord, Samuel, was thinking the chosen one by God to be a leader and reign over Israel, God’s people, would be the one who was apparently more suitable for the role. However, God, once again, has surprised Samuel and Jesse (David’s father) by choosing apparently the weakest and less capable for the role. But, David, the small one, the humble shepherd was chosen and anointed by God Himself to rein over his people. Thinking about David and his mission, we know that God had much greater plans for him, because it would be through his offspring that the Messiah would come to reign eternally over God’s people and all over the world. Jesus Christ our Lord, the Son of God, through the descendants of David was called by God, the Father, to establish the kingdom that has no end, not only on earthly things, but above and beyond this world.
The little and weak David accepted God’s call and believed that it was not through his own actions that will of God would be made. He believed in the Lord Himself. He knew that through his own strengths he would not be capable of performing and following the call of God for him. He relied upon the Holy Spirit to guide him and give him strength to keep up with what he had been called. Of course, he felt “butterflies in his stomach”, of course he felt incapable to correspond to such a great call. However, he did not stop at himself. He did not look at himself and frozen entirely. That is what happens to us when we look at ourselves only; we are frozen in our own fears, in our own weakness. Instead, David looked at the Lord. He looked and trusted in the Lord. He was confident that once God Himself had called him, He would be close to him in all moments of his life. The best example of that was when he defeated the great Philistine warrior, the great Goliath. No one from the Saul’s army dared to fight against the giant Goliath. They were all frozen on themselves as statues. Their fears had frozen them.
David did not look at himself; instead he looked at the Lord and trusted in God.
The conclusion of this story as we all know, David stepped forward and put himself into battle against Goliath. David did not look at himself; instead he looked at the Lord and trusted in God. The victory of the Israelites over the Philistines came through the “yes” of David to confront and defeat the giant Goliath. That is what we are called to every day in our lives. We are called to look at God and, trusting in Him, to defeat the “Goliaths” that the world daily shows to us. “Every day the enemy of God offers us the nasty and withered bread” says the Holy Father, Pope Francis. Indeed, the world is much more capable of upsetting us than we can imagine. The world and its own worries can take us away from God. The world can present itself as a true Goliath to us. Let’s not make this as cause of discontentment or lake of hope, but instead let’s face what the world is full of capacity to make us down with God’s Grace and trusting in Him we are certain we can with the giant Goliath in our daily lives.
Let’s ask God’s Grace upon us this week so that we can believe in Him to help and guide us to win all the worries of this world. With God’s Grace we fix our eyes towards Him and not towards us. May the humblest and most holy of all creatures, our Lady Mother of God, help and encourage us to fix our heart in Christ his son. She may help us and give us courage to fight all the difficulties in life, all the “Goliaths” that the world presents us.
God bless you. Shalom!
By Clelio De Souza – Missionary of Shalom Community in London, UK