Last week Daniel Josiah’s preschool was doing a “Bible Character Parade” in which the kids were suppose to dress up as their favorite Bible character.  When I asked Daniel Josiah what he wanted to dress up as, the conversation went like this:

Me: So, Daniel Josiah, who do you want to be for the parade?

Daniel Josiah:  How about King Saul? (if you need a refresher, King Saul offered David his sword in order to go fight Goliath)

Me: Saul wasn’t a very good king, he didn’t follow God.  Can you pick someone else?

Daniel Josiah:  What about Goliath? (Goliath also had a sword…probably a very large one to fit his mammoth sized body)

Me:  Goliath was an enemy of God and his people.  You don’t want to be him!  What about David?

Daniel Josiah:  Who else had a sword?

Me: I know!  Why don’t you be King Josiah because he loved God and loved the sword of God’s Word!

(and, not sure that he was buying the whole “sword of God’s word” , I added:

“And I’m sure he had a sword because he was a king.”

Right after this conversation, it dawned on me that the “heroes” that God uses don’t typically have big weapons or even a lot of external gifts, for that matter. It makes there accomplishments extremely puzzling…until you know the “Invisible Power” behind all of what they do and are. My little boy wanted something physical to show off, and so often we do too.  We want either a great gifting set in ourselves, or the ideal ministry circumstance, or money in the bank account before we are willing to “fight battles” for God.  But the beauty of all the heroes that God has used in the past (that DJ did NOT think it would be fun to be in a costume parade) is that they had nothing physical going for them. They only had a hope in the unseen God, who specifically chooses to use people that have nothing except HIM.

Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of WHAT WE DO NOT SEE”.  The cry of my heart for my life and my family’s lives is that our lives would be lived in such a way that there would be no other possible explanation but that there is an Invisible God that has chosen to dwell in visible people.

This little secret of the Kingdom makes for much glory to an Almighty God, but not much help for a little boy who wants to get to carry a sword at school. Sorry, kiddo.  You’ll be thankful for this truth when you get a little bigger.