There is an old saying: 'The devil is in the details.' Meaning: The difficulty is in the many small details. Ask anyone who has ever tried to assemble a computer desk from IKEA; or a student who has written a term paper according to Turabian; or a novice chef trying to follow a detailed recipe.
But if the devil is in the details, so, too, may be the gospel. First Samuel tells the story of David and Goliath. Young David brings food to his three big brothers who are with Israel’s army in the Valley of Elah. David arrives as Goliath is challenging the army of Israel to a one-onone, man-to-man combat.
David asks why no Israelite has accepted Goliath's challenge, embarrassing his older brother, Eliab, who retorts, 'What are you doing around here anyway? You just want to see battle and blood. And what about the flock you're supposed to be watching—whose tending the sheep?'
'Sheep!', David must have thought. “Are there not weightier matters here than tending sheep?” Yet there is wisdom in Eliab's question.
The family's sheep were not just sheep; they were the family's livelihood, and they had been left in the charge of a third party. Can it be that, with our eyes on giants, we begin to neglect the seemingly smaller, yet equally important responsibilities in our lives, in our homes, in our callings?
Who’s t end ing t he sheep? How often it is the little sins that spoil our lives. William Temple, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury, was reflecting on the promise in Isaiah 1: 'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.' He wrote, 'My sins were not scarlet. They were only gray: the colorless sins of omission, inertia and timidity.”
The giants of our world today are the sheep of yesterday that were left unattended. Tennyson put it poetically. 'It is the little rift within the lute That by-and-by will make the music mute, And, ever widening, slowly silence all.'
An 18-year-old watches his mother brag about the shady financial shelter she got the IRS to accept. He watches his father, the football coach, encourage illegal moves on the field. He watches as his older brother accepts a position on the football team of a university that is competing for him and offering him a sports car and a scholarship for his girlfriend. He watches his boss at the market wrap old meat and scan the same item twice on the cash register. But when the 18-yearold copies his homework from the internet and gets caught, what he is told is, 'If there's one thing the adult world can't stand, it's a kid who cheats.'
The late Gilda Radner had a pet dog that lost its hind legs under a lawn mower. After weeks of healing, the dog was able to get about by putting its front paws forward and scooting her bottom along the ground. Afterward the pet gave birth to a healthy litter of puppies. The puppies watched their mother; and though they had four legs, when they learned to walk, it was by putting their front paws forward and scooting their bottoms along the ground. Don’t be worried that your kid doesn't hear everything. Worry that they see everything.
The day will come, when Jesus, the Great Shepherd, will ask of those who are his, 'Where are my sheep?' To those who have kept the flock, Jesus will say, 'Well done, good and faithful shepherds. Because you have been trustworthy in small things, I will set you over much,” for the Kingdom is in the details.
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.