Training is important. I love attending conferences. Well, I love good, helpful conferences. Not all of them are great, you know.
I'm ruminating over the story found in 1 Samuel 16 and 17 over the story of David and Goliath duking it out in the Elah Valley in Central Israel. Sure we know the story, but the more we know the story the more we miss the important details that can teach us volumes about what it means to live a God-directed life.
The striking detail for me at the moment is when David is being fitted with King Saul's armor before stepping out on the battlefield with Goliath...and he turns it down.
It's too big.
It's too clunky.
It's not him.
He doesn't need it.
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during that conversation. What might have Saul said to David after he took them off, dropped them to the floor and said, "No, thanks."
The privilege (and the confidence!) of wearing the King's armor would have been overwhelming for most...but not for David. It wasn't him. It wasn't enough. I've wondered if that ever came across as arrogant or wildly naive in the eyes of everyone else watching the battle that day.
But I find it interesting that he wasn't unprepared. He did have weapons, you know, made of leather and stone. Round, heavy ones. Five of them, to be exact. Five stones that he collected when he picked up and studied their size and weight and shape the way a woman in the produce section of the grocery store selects her melons and cantelopes.
A leather strap, five round rocks and God.
That was enough for David.
Listen to what one writer said about this:
"This is a common experience in the Valley of Elah, when an amateur ventures into a field dominated by professionals. All around us people who care about us are suddenly there helping -- piling armor on us, dressing us up in equipment that's going to qualify us for the task (even though it didn't seem to be doing them much good). We get advice. We get instruction. We're sent off to a training workshop. We find ourselves with an armload of books. These people are truly concerned about us, and we're touched by their concern, in awe of their knowledge and experience. We listen to them and do what they tell us. And then we find that we can hardly move...
..."But to have gone to meet Goliath wearing Saul's armor would have been a distaster. Borrowed armor always is. David needed what wa authentic to him." (Leap Over a Wall, pp. 41-42).
I sometimes feel this way about seminary. To me, after two semesters of trying to make the armor fit, it just seemed too heavy, uncomfortable, restricting and cumbersome. It's just my experience, I know, so I don't want to make blanket statements about all seminary experiences, but I decided to drop it to the ground and say, "No, thanks. I'll take the stones please."
What I think the author of the above quote isn't saying is that conferences are bad, advice is always wrong or that formal training should be ignored. I think he's trying to make the point that it's overemphasized, relied upon way too much.
I think if David had worn the armor and used King Saul's armor then people would have been saying that David was a skilled warrior who defeated Goliath. David would have gotten all of the credit. But instead, it was God who was honored, God who protected David and allowed him to defeat the giant. It was God had got all the credit.
Maybe the ministry training conferences that have given me a bad taste in my mouth are the ones where they are forcibly trying to fit me with their armor right after I've picked up my conference packet and been handed my nametag at the registration desk.
Like the author, I am not implying that trainging and development are wrong. In fact, it's necessary. But other people's armor just won't do for me. It's too clunky, too big, too restricting of my movements, it's unnatural. What I need is something that is authentic to me and allows me to trust big for God.
Maybe the best training is teaching others to pick out their own stones and affirming their decision to try on what is authentic to them and what fits their movements and size, in addition to challenging others to remember that God is on our side.
Maybe we need to stop being fitted for armor that doesn't fit and start kneeling at the river's edge to select stones that work for us...with God on our side.
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