In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy DaySample

THE POTENTIAL IN THE PROBLEM

I wonder if King David felt a special affinity for Benaiah. David was once a bodyguard like Benaiah. And just as with Benaiah, it was a lion encounter that prepared David for his big break.

Long before becoming king, David was a shepherd boy. While his brothers were on the front lines fighting the Philistines, David was stuck on the sidelines tending sheep. David felt like he had been put out to pasture, but God was honing an uncanny ability that would catapult him into the national limelight.

Right before his epic battle with Goliath, David connected the dots between his past problems and current opportunity. He reviewed his resume so that Saul would let him fight Goliath:

When a lion or bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it and struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. (1 Samuel 17:34-37 NIV)

At the end of our lives, like David, we’ll thank God for the lions and bears and giants. And like Benaiah, we’ll thank God for the pits and lions and snowy days. Because sometimes the biggest problems present the greatest opportunities for God to reveal His glory and work His purposes.

No one likes being in the pits or put out to pasture, but maybe God is developing character and honing skills that will serve you later in life. In fact, the tests God sends your way can lead to maturity, until you are “complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:4 ESV).

Choose at least one problem you’re facing today and try to look at it from the perspective of God’s unfolding plan. What good might He be bringing out of this difficulty?