When the Fearful turn Brave. A Boy, like David. #UNITE Link-Up

He’s been wildly flapping his arms, and screeching, all weekend. A bottle of anxiety, caught between the other children reading…

And having a normal childhood.

He walked his first day bravely, into Kindergarten….

Not a self-contained class, not the place where other kids go who need services a regular class can’t supply.

But, the “big boy” class, He calls it. The one where rows are alligned. One where his chances of climbing and trying and reaching the bar are actually held high….attainable.

Yet, how many times, do we bend low to disability and pain, instead of calling children higher to a life filled with success and greater freedom?

And don’t we remember children are naturally capable and resilient….or do we highlight their broken-ness, having pity and then esteeming ourselves for being some savior?

And why have we set up a global system where children become central, catered to, even pitied….never having to achieve anything….

Making instead, the priority, comfort….rather than reaching for the stars, wanting for them, the full sum of their potentional?

And why do we allow pain and hurt to take the center stage? Set up idols and make parades of behaviors….

Instead of expecting courage and self-control, bravery and strength to dictate any particular situation.

He spun in circles, like a chicken, half shot, flapping wildly for no apparent reason.

He screeches, randomly. But I understand….

He is decompressing.

He didn’t know, but I was watching….always watching.

Because often it’s the pain that surfaces when no one is looking that grows and inflames, and tries to dominate later behaviors.

So, I walk close.

Face head on, the anxiety he has been feeling since starting Kindergarten.

This world has too many cowards.

“I am afraid. Other kids are smarter. They are going to make fun of me.”

The fire starts rising in me. “So what!”

I go on to explain….I couldn’t read until almost in college. I was a closet-type, slipping-through-the-cracks type of public school system student.

I am dyslexic.

“But look at what God has done through me.”

We serve a God of miracles. When did we as a society, ever stop believing that?

I tell him, “If God can help me, He can help you.”

I share with him that I write now. How I have a platform that reaches India, and China, Africa and South America. Not to esteem myself, but to show him, the world is attainable, reach-able, even by broken people.

His eyes widen.

He takes a deep breath.

A breath letting out all the anxiety, the doubts, the questions.

And how our testimony must be greater as we face opposition, as we look fear in the face, we must testify…

You are not winning….We know The One who conquered sin and death, and the is victory over you too!

“I never told you that, did I?” He grins a ray of sunshine. A little more hopeful, eyes widen. I can tell he is encouraged.

“And maybe your story isn’t just about you. Maybe the reason for your tough childhood is so that one day you can turn around and be an encouragement for other people.”

Were my words over his head? I mean, he is five. But I could tell by the light, shining up his eyes…that he “got” it.

He lifts the hood off his face, a little.

And just then, I remember him saying he wants to be a police officer.

This morning we sit on the porch, waiting for the bus. He looks like a shaking tree, trembling from the ragging wind inside him.

Tiny. Timid.

He looks so little.

That wildly brave boy who takes a punch from another kid without crying. The one whose face gets gashed and he looks without tears streaming, bravely confessing, “He hurt me.”

And when did we, as adults, learn to shut off all feeling? How did he make is so long, closed off from everything…yet, now become so vulnerable?

And who are we when we exchange numbness for living, call callouseness an existence…instead of bravely speaking out and sharing our hopes and fears?

And yet, so many strangers know our little guy. I can’t go anywhere without people telling me, “Oh, we know, Hiiiim.”

But, do they? Really?

Or are they just seeing the ripples? The ripples of hardship and trauma? The repercussions from thousands of other people’s choices?

And what if we too were robots?

Told to move and go and do whatever someone else instructed, every second of our lives, every moment we’ve ever been awake…

What if the future looked darkest, just because nobody chose to tough it out, and stay beside you?

I mean, stay beside you and NOT leave….

So, I tell him of David. The brave boy who took a slingshot and plastered a rock between the terrifying giant’s eyes.

And how fear is like that giant. Doubt, questions, inadequacies, shame, are like a ragging giant, taunting and trying to intimidate us…

In our very own minds….

But, we must resist him.

We are a slave to no one. And we need not ever to cower in fear.

I tell him of how David wasn’t perfect.

About how when Samuel came to annoint a King, He took a look at all of Jesse’s sons in hopes of choosing.

The others were tall, and brave, and handsome. They, I am sure, were educated in warfare, wiser, and more experienced.

And yet….God wanted the smallest and weakest. The one David’s own father, turned away from and rejected.

See God uses the least of these to confound the proud.

And just when we think we “can’t” God says…

“And yet…”

• And yet, He is the Redeemer.
• And yet, He is The One who suprises the boastful and arrogant.
• And yet, He is the God who chooses the weakest and least likely to rise in His Kingdom, to do the most profound and powerful working and miracles through.
• “And yet,” Just when you think you can’t go on….the world is too big and dark and you are weak and incapable of having the hope to even take your next breath….

God sweeps in and finds you. He sees the lost out in the wilderness and calls you close and annoints you, specifically for the task…

Because God raises up the humble….the trampled and tormented….the least likely…

Those others have cast off and found useless.

At the end of the conversation, I find him on my lap. The little boy curls up, not like a five-year-old Kindergartener….but more like an infant.

His legs almost reach his chest and his head tucks tight like a baby chick, underneath my neck.

He doesn’t say a word.

So, I lather him in praise and encouragement. Find every little, single thing to boast about him, I can.

I tell him of how proud we are of him. How brave he has been. And how, although this isn’t easy…He is my David.

Prayers hover over him in the silence….

And I remember how much I love this little boy.

There in the shadows, where no one is looking….

God reminds me that He took me when I was fearful. He curled me close and spoke to me…not of my faults…but encouraged me with all the ways I was perfect, in His eyes, anyway.

He confirmed over and over how I was made in His image, and by grace, I was fearfully and wonderfully made.

So, I do that with him. Here, on the porch.

Maybe you are a David. Someone wandering and seemingly forgotten.

But friend, God hasn’t forgotten you, left you to wander in your insignificance. He hasn’t cast you off. He hasn’t paraded others around you, to shrink or intimdate you.

And today, He is saying….“It is the day of David.”

It is a day where the least will become greatest. It’s a time where powers and principalities will bow down to the God who reigns and rules everything.

Then, we will rise.

Not in our own power. Not in any wisdom or strength that has derived from us.

But out of the overflow of His grace which is sufficient. We will stand and take our position as the dearly loved, the chosen…

Orphans, turned sons or daughters,

It is then, we will wear our crown proudly….And never be shaken again.

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