Ever feel like an outcast? I think I’ve spent most of my life feeling like I wasn’t quite like everyone else. I was the one who, in the 2nd grade, found myself straightening up the decorative pieces on the tables while I was supposed to be enjoying my best friend’s birthday party. I was the one who insisted on doing my homework at the front of the school bus even when everyone else was talking and laughing. I was the one who took high school math textbooks and quizzed my self for fun. I was called too quiet, too proper, and most times, just different.
Well, last night I heard a sermon from a youth pastor at my current church, and although the target audience was 11 to 18, it encouraged me. The message was simple: God created you the way you are for a reason, and that He doesn’t want you to be anything but yourself. He just wants to redirect your focus and help you accomplish more than you can imagine.
David And Goliath
The basis for the message was the battle between David and Goliath in the Bible (1 Samuel 17). In it, Goliath challenged the Israelites to combat, but no one accepted the challenge but David. Saul, an experienced soldier in battle, expected David to be like everyone else and wear heavy armor when fighting, but David did not want to. He ended up putting on Saul’s armor anyway, but it was too big and uncomfortable. So he had to take it all off.
David was young, small, but he knew how to use slings to keep wild animals away from the sheep he used to keep for his father. And in the end, he won the battle. God used what made him different from the other fighters in that time to help him take down Goliath.
Made For A Mission
Through my late teens and early adulthood, I think I spent so much time trying to be like everyone else that I was never true to myself. I never thought it was okay to be me completely. But last night’s message and the story of David and Goliath finally made me understand why that wasn’t true.
There’s a mission out there where your drive, your strengths, and your talents can be used. And part of that mission is sharing this great revelation with others so they too can have greater understanding of their purpose in life. Because like it says in singer Britt Nicole’s latest song, when you standout, it’s how “the lost get found.”
