1 Samuel 16:11-12 – “Samuel said to Jesse: are all the young men here? And he said: no, there remains the youngest and he's keeping the sheep. And Samuel said to him send and bring him, we will not sit down until he comes here. And they sent and brought him in. He was red head with bright eyes and good looking. And the Lord said arise, anoint him; that's the one!”
His family considered him to be the least, the lowest, and the youngest - and often the youngest is either the pet of the family, or the one they all pick on. In this case, David was given the worst job in the whole family. The family was quite poor, they only had a few sheep - we know this because in verse 17 it says: “only a few sheep”. So, because they weren't a wealthy family, they couldn't employ someone to look after the sheep, so they gave him the job - the lowest job, the dirtiest job, to young David. He was the youngest in the family, lowest in position, and no one thought anything of him - no one thought he was important. They all walked all over him! In fact, when there was an important feast, he wasn't even invited!
He wasn't even included in the spiritual things. He had just a few sheep; and looking after sheep was the lowest of jobs. It was a menial job, and a very lonely job. He would have to make sure the sheep didn't wander off; he would lead them, and look after them, and that was his full-time job. What do you do all day, looking after a handful of sheep? What do you do, when you've got a boring, menial job? What do you do in that kind of time?
He developed some qualities, three qualities, in that time. In that season, when no one notices you, and you're just doing the menial tasks that no one even cares about… it's cleaning the toilets, washing up outside. Think about what he had to do...
He had to dag the sheep - and they didn't have these fancy buzzers they have now - he just had little clippers, and he had to clip off all the dags, to clean them all up. He had to get all the bugs out of them. He had to lay his life down, in looking after them. He proved himself faithful, in small manners. While everyone else was doing the important jobs, he got the least jobs, and he is qualifying himself to be a king. He qualified himself in three ways…
1) David developed a devotion, and a passion, for the Lord.
Psalm 27:4 – “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple”.
Psalm 16:11 – “…In Your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore”.
How can you write that stuff? You must have experienced it! He developed a heart to seek after God. He played a guitar (or some kind of musical instrument), so day after day, as he did this work… menial tasks, looking after the sheep, where no one is watching, David is developing a heart to worship God - a heart to pursue God.
People would say: we feel sorry for you, in that job; but he's saying: no, I'm not sorry I've got that job, because this is a great chance for me to pursue what's the delight of my heart - a relationship with God. So even though he had a menial task, he was developing a heart to worship God. He was learning how to worship, how to express his heart to God, express feelings to God. He was learning how to express his concerns.
Imagine being out there, night after night, day after day - all alone, with no one to talk to, except sheep. It's a place where no one sees what's going on in your life, and in that place, some things happen. You can develop a heart to love God, because no one really recognises you anyway. One of the things that will be a secret for you, becoming great is, you learn to have a love of God, and to find your life in Him; not in the job you're doing.