David stepped onto the battlefield in his gym clothes.
He skipped and jumped like a ballet dancer, then with one fluid motion, released the lash of his sling.
The smooth projectile hurtled out at around 50 meters per second. The giant didn’t even see what hit him.
What was the secret to the shepherd boy's success?
He trusted in his armor.
In 1 Samuel 17:38-40, we read,
Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.
“I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.
David didn’t flinch at the thought of going into battle unprotected. This world tells us to stock up, hoard, and store in silohs. On top of that, it warns of catastrophe if we don’t agree to buy insurance for everything.
But David knew where his help came from, and it wasn’t his shield:
David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.
The quickening Spirit of the Lord can create existence from nothing. Do we forget the feeding of the 5,000 with five loaves?
Maybe what I’m trying to say is that we ought to stop trying to be so self-sufficient.
Car parts and new hearts
A few weeks ago, a buddy and I were replacing my brakes, when he made a startling discovery: my rear brake pads had no wear: they not functioned in almost 2 years.
We would have to replace the calipers, a long, arduous job that thankfully, he was prepared to do. But that’s a story for a different day.
This article has to do with finding value in what we have, and while a car will never be an investment, it stills hides value in the strangest of places. Like old calipers.
It turns out that the auto shop will buy those and other parts back (I had to get a new alternator back in March) to remanufacture them.
For a basic look at remanufactured parts, click here.
There is a kind of cool poetry at work in this process, one that is not lost on me as a born-again believer in Jesus.
The key takeaway is that when we are born again, we receive a new spirit, tried in fire. However, our lives retain their original form and function. We still go to the same jobs, see the same people, feel the same feelings. The only thing that changes is our value.
We go from blown-out, beaten-up, useless “cores” that serve no purpose in the Kingdom, to brand-new, worthy, reliable vessels of grace and forgiveness. All because of the cleansing power of the Blood!
In other words, Ezekiel said it best in chapter 36, verse 26:
A new heart will I give you, a new spirit will I put within you; and I will remove the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.
Grill, Baby, Grill
Rust, rain, repair. They couldn’t stand it any longer. The old thing had to go. So they put up an add on Facebook marketplace. Price: free to a good home.
Their trash, my treasure.
The grill originally retailed for around $600. Now, all it took were some replacement parts and a new tank of propane for this grill to get all fired up.
We’re called to make friends out of unrighteous mammon. Also, there’s just something holy about conservation. Romans 8:28 tells us that all things work together for our good in Christ. Nothing is wasted with God.
As righteous stewards, shouldn’t we see our homes the same way?
When I married my wife, I knew I met someone resourceful. She grows radishes in old milk cartons. She saves strawberry seeds for planting after eating fruit salad. She even saves plastic bags and washes them out (in our one year and three months of marriage, we’ve never yet had to buy a new box of baggies).
To some of you that might sound like being cheap, but there’s a certain charm in finding creative ways for us to reuse our purchases.
When our dollars are constantly flowing in and out on single-use items, how much value are we really getting out of them? Shouldn’t we be treating every purchase like an investment, milking this unrighteous mammon for all it’s worth?
And if, as the wise man once said, there is nothing new under the sun1, then maybe it’s time to start appreciating what we already have. After all, anything new, isn’t.
Sometimes we do need new things. I wouldn’t climb a mountain with a secondhand rope. But there are serious drawbacks to our throwaway culture.
When we buy new things, instead of using the old ones, we're filling the void that God, ever-present, ever-new, ever-creating Creator, was meant to fill alone.
Use it or lose it.
I had a dream one night where I'm sitting in a college math class. The professor hands out a worksheet that unlocks a flood of memories: calculus, trigonometry, sines, radii, and π all come rushing back to my sleeping mind. What a marvel.
I woke up andn pondered the hidden caverns of consciousness, inaccessible to the waking intellect. Then I thought how beautiful those equations had seemed in my vision of the night.
There was a time when I really enjoyed math!
Then I went to college.
Math became applied, competitive, and mostly, difficult. And like a muscle, it atrophied. (Look at the bright side, now I write for 21 wonderful subscribers on Substack).
My point in bringing up this example is that using our old stuff is a lot like using our gifts. It opens our senses to the beautiful lives we’ve been given.
There are short-term and long-term objects, luxury and economy cars, commodities and necessities, but there is a lifeblood that animates them all, and His name is the Holy Spirit. If we include Him in our decision making and in the life of our puchases, He will repurpose our stories into miraculous adventures.
Repurposing builds faith because it teaches us to trust what God has done in the past.
It frees us from constant worry about the future.
And it allows us to live prayerfully in the present by enjoying life and slowing down to give thanks for what we have.
Prayer
Father, whether we have a lot or a little, we thank you. We are not worried about tomorrow because we know what You did for us yesterday. Allow us to live today with the supernatural peace that comes from our salvation, Father, and from knowing that You provide all our needs, new and old. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
Great article Jack! As a life-long repairer of broken and worn out things, I totally relate to this post and am forever grateful for our eternal mechanic, Lord Jesus!