And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and thy servant slew them both: as this Philistine shall be, as one of them. — 1 Samuel 17:34-36
God uses every moment in our lives to prepare us for something. There is nothing brought into our lives by mistake. Each moment. Each trial. Each heartache. Each challenge. Each season that felt pointless or painful or impossibly long. All of it is working together for good, as Romans 8:28 reminds us, for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Not some of it. All of it. Working together. Toward something.
David understood this before he ever knew how to articulate it. When Saul questioned his qualifications to face Goliath, David did not talk about the giant. He talked about a lion and a bear. Two encounters that had taken place in a field, in complete obscurity, with no audience and no recognition. Nobody witnessed those battles. Nobody recorded them in any official account. Nobody gathered to celebrate when David stood over the carcass of a lion that had threatened his father’s flock.
It was just David. And the animal. And God. But those private moments in an unremarkable field doing an unremarkable job were not separate from what was about to happen in the valley of Elah. They were the preparation for it. The lion was not an interruption to David’s story. It was a classroom. The bear was not a random attack. It was a lesson. And the lesson was this, the God who delivered him there would deliver him here. The circumstances were different. The opponent was larger. But the God was exactly the same.
David’s confidence before Goliath was not arrogance. It was a track record.
He had tested the faithfulness of God in the small hidden moments and God had not failed him. Not once. And so when the giant appeared and everyone around him was paralyzed by fear, David had something they did not. He had a testimony. And that testimony, built quietly, privately, in a field where nobody was watching, was exactly what he needed to walk into the valley.
Every believer has a field. A place where God has been building something that the world has not yet seen. The private battles you fought when no one was watching. The quiet faithfulness you maintained in a season that felt like it was going nowhere. The trial you endured that produced something in you that comfort never could have. The heartache that reshaped the way you see people and pain and the faithfulness of God. None of it was accidental. None of it was wasted.
It was all working together. The valley always comes. The giant always appears. And when it does, the question is not whether you have the right credentials or the most impressive resume. The question is what you learned in the field. What did God build in you in the seasons nobody saw? What testimony have you accumulated in the private moments of quiet faithfulness and unlikely victory?
That is what you carry into the valley. David brought a lion and a bear. What God has been building in your field will be exactly what you need when you finally stand before your giant.
Nothing was wasted. Not one moment. Not one trial. Not one field. What God built in you in the field is exactly what He intends to use in the valley.
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Another Well Ministries exists to help people slow down, listen deeply, and encounter God in the ordinary places of life. Through devotionals, reflections, and spiritual resources, we seek to create space for faith to be formed with honesty, grace, and hope.
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