Welcome to Buoy, a Life in Deeper Water podcast.

Episode 26. A Slung Stone and A Stone’s Throw (David, Jesus, and you)

(click here to listen now)

Hello human.

Thank you for jumpin’ on the buoy today. How do we prepare for celebrating the resurrection?

Many people have been observing Lent, fasting from whatever has a hold of us, to clear our minds, our hearts.

To clear our focus.

I woke up one morning last week with the little shepherd boy, David, on my heart. It had been part of my unrelated dream, presented as a solution to what was happening in the dream. I won’t go into it, that’s not important, but I felt relieved that David had provided an answer to a dilemma I was in during the dream. Long after waking up, I realized it was still on my heart, that the Holy Spirit had put that little shepherd boy’s five stones on my heart, not for the dream, but for my witness. That alone got my spiritual attention.

What I was thinking about was David, how he had to walk toward the giant, and that he took him out with one stone. I was thinking about his one focus and his singular courage to defend a living God.

The Power of a Slung Stone

What does this have to do with the most important event for my life, when Jesus was resurrected? That’s what I asked myself. Consider a few verses of the David and Goliath story:

I Samuel 17

3 The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them.

The three oldest followed Saul, 15 but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father’s sheep at Bethlehem.

David, the youngest of the brothers at the scene, kept doing what God had charged him to do. Tend his sheep, check on his brothers. Back and forth from one to the other.

16 For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand.

Forty days of that tall, menacing 9 foot-plus Goliath presence. The Israelites all tried to name slaying that giant, “impossible.” When all of them were talking about the earthly stature and possessions that would be given to whoever killed Goliath, David set straight what the motivation should be:

26 David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

David is talking about his God, the God that roams the fields with him. It is all the same to David, because there is one living God. In speaking to his brothers and all around him about how he defended his herd, David says,

36 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.

And then, as the story goes, David, tried on the battle uniform they had given him:

39 David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.
“I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So, he took them off.

They tried to recreate David into a warrior’s image – his breastplate, tunic, a sword, a “here’s what you gotta do” mentality. But David chose to go into battle as he tended his sheep, as himself, trusting in the power of the living God. His authentic self, protected by a trust in His living God.

40 Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.

Maybe smooth because a smooth stone easily slides out of the pouch and through David’s adept fingers, a bullet in the air… maybe five smooth stones, because David knew Goliath had four brothers who would seek retribution, or maybe five because how God arms us with His power, His nature… goes far beyond what any earthly challenge would bring us. God’s nature is more than enough.

47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

David trusted in God’s capacity to own the battle.

49 Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.

When God acts, it’s final. It’s facedown. It is exactly what it is intended to be in our lives.

When we trust God as David did, when we walk up to life’s 9 ft challenges, we are represented by a living God. We have ample stones—the grace, divine assurance, and earthly courage—we will ever need. But what is beyond powerful is that David acted as if he had one stone: one focus (on God), one effort (his aim), one release (of God’s Will).

What I most want to note is that David had to walk toward Goliath. He had to get closer.

Embracing Easter requires we get closer to the power of the resurrection. What happened to Jesus.

What happens to us.

Jesus shows us divine closeness, and eternal courage in the final hours before His arrest:
When He walked a stone’s throw from His disciples to pray to His Heavenly Father on the Mount of Olives.

A Stone’s Throw Beyond

Jesus and the disciples had just completed The Last Supper, the very first communion with Jesus Christ. They broke bread, drank wine, in remembrance of their time with Him, and what had not yet happened. The table discussion ranged from debating who was greatest after Jesus, and Peter being told he would deny Jesus three times. It included Jesus telling them what to take with them for their life beyond their time together. It included a sword, and He reminded them that He always takes care of them, to trust Him. Then as Jesus always did, they headed to the Mount of Olives.

Luke 22:

39 Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. 40 On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” 41 He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

45 When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. 46 “Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”

Jesus did not need to go far—a stone’s throw—to give His focus solely to His Heavenly Father.

Yet, His disciples did not need to be far from Him to fall into what I would call a “slumber of deep sorrow.” He warns them to stay close through prayer, seek spiritual closeness. To not be tempted.

So, these are two portraits of courage, a young shepherd boy and the world’s Savior. One drawing on His intimate knowledge of how God protected Him in the fields, and the other drawing on His intimate knowledge of what it is to be fully human and fully divine at the same time. Jesus is the only one who will ever know that.

Both declaring the glory of a “living God” and the power of “His Will.”

Both knowing the cost. And paying it with courage.

Easter is God’s answer to Jesus, His answer to our Savior’s prayer on the Mount of Olives, the night before His arrest.

An answer that included:

Death.
Burial.
And the stone rolled away.

It takes courage to step closer. It’s the distance between my free will and God’s Will.
But, the good news, the Good News, for me, and for you, is, that we are always a stone’s throw from a resurrected heart.

Episode 27.