Sheep or Shepherd

So there's David: young, handsome, blessed by God (1 Sam 16:12-13), and highly skilled AT (drumroll?) ...tending sheep. Of course, he performs and experiences incredible things in the future, but when you are initially introduced to him in First Samuel, he is a shepherd. Watches over sheep, fights wildlife for the sake of his woolly responsibility, but most of us wouldn't be very interested in this kind of life. We're all looking for that "Goliath moment" where we are not only proving our worth (even if it is usually only to ourselves), but we get a glimpse of what potential we have and what we may have really been born to do. This whole idea is better illustrated in "Looking for Goliath" by Jonathan Acuff at his site "Stuff Christians Like".

What stuck out to me when reading his entry was, like I mentioned, that David was a shepherd. Yes, he became a king eventually (2 Samuel 5:3), but he was a shepherd to start. Sometimes you have to exist in places, jobs, housing, etc. that seem to have you walking nowhere near where you thought you would be at this point in your life, but that may just mean that you have simple sheep to watch over for now until you are placed in charge of a country (figuratively or literally, who knows?). But my concern (for myself and others) is that if you find yourself surrounded by sheep, there are usually only two things you could possibly be: a shepherd ... or another sheep. And remember, shepherds have been known to become kings; sheep have been known to become sweaters.