Learning Truth Directly from God’s Word
“Only a boy named David,
Only a little sling,
Only a boy named David,
But he could pray and sing.”
But David wasn’t only a boy; rather, he was a young person who became a man after God’s own heart. My recent Sunday school lessons have been a series explaining what made the difference in David’s life from others around him. While I prepare the lessons for the children, my own heart has been very tender as I consider what happened in the fields around Bethlehem when David the shepherd boy tended his father’s sheep, observed God’s handiwork in His creation, and became the man after God’s own heart there.
While we might disregard David’s shepherd’s job as his oldest brother Eliab surely did (I Samuel 17:28), David was learning important truths directly from God!
He knew God as the Creator, his Redeemer, and his Protector as many of the Psalms confirm.
- David learned that God is the Creator: Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork.”
- As David viewed the vastness of the sky and considered God the Creator, He felt very small as Psalm 8:3-4 suggests, “…What is man, that thou art mindful of Him?”
- David also realized he couldn’t hide from God. Psalm 139 teaches us that God has both searched and known us from the inside out and from our mother’s womb. Even the darkness, we cannot hide from God.
- David knew the law of God (Psalm 19:7-10); he sought God’s forgiveness for his sin (Psalm 32:1, 5); and he knew that his sins were removed as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 139:12).
- Psalm 40:1-3 records David’s testimony, that God heard his cry, lifted him out of a horrible pit, set his feet upon a rock and established his goings. God gave him a new song of praise to God, which would be a great influence on others.
- Finally, in the beloved Psalm 23, David says, “The Lord is my shepherd” and that God led him in his life as David led his sheep. He knew God’s protection in his life as he trusted the Lord.
What a delightful experience for David’s spiritual growth in preparation for his future work in the kingdom of God! What others looked down on, David found to be wonderful time spent communing with his God!
What can we learn from David’s time in the fields alone with the sheep and with God?
Dear Reader, we have the privilege to read, listen to, and sing the Psalms! Take every advantage for yourself to read, memorize, meditate on, and master the truths found in the Psalms! We are never too young or too old to hear the Scriptures.
Mamas, plan time for your children (and yourself) to hear the Bible read or to read it for themselves, even while they (or you) may be doing other things.
Oh, that our children would know God as David did!