Want greater impact? Pass the Keeper Test.
David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.” Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.” But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them.” (1 Samuel 17:32-36)
We open our study of David with one of the most famous scenes from his life: His decision to fight the seemingly undefeatable Goliath.
Saul’s response to David’s eagerness was essentially, “Pump the brakes kid. You’re crazy. And massively unqualified to go to battle against this warrior.”
But David’s response to Saul is what I want you to focus on today. David didn’t flex. He didn’t point to his killer slingshot strategy. He pointed to his track record of faithfulness. He essentially said, “Sure, I’ve never killed an oversized Philistine. But I have been doing my job as a shepherd with excellence. And so, I can be trusted with this greater responsibility.”
Sometimes we, like David, are eager to take on more responsibility in our work. We dream of “bigger roles” and having “greater impact” for God’s Kingdom. If our motives are mostly pure, I think God smiles on those aspirations. But in the meantime, it’s clear that he expects us to focus on our current assignments with excellence. In the words of Jesus, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much” (Luke 16:10).
So here’s my question for you today: Based on how you are stewarding your current responsibilities, would you expect God to trust you with more? Here are three exercises to help you answer that question.
#1: Ask God to convict you one way or another. Only you and God know if you are being faithful with the work he has given you to do. So ask the Holy Spirit to reveal this truth.
#2: Take the Keeper Test. Imagine that later today, you gave your two weeks notice to your boss—or, if you’re an entrepreneur, imagine you told a client you could no longer work with them. Now answer this question: How hard would your boss or client fight to keep you? If your honest answer is, “not very,” you’re probably not being faithful with the work God has put in your hands today.
#3: Pretend your boss spent all last week looking over your shoulder. Would you be proud or embarrassed by how you spent your time?
Take two minutes to work through one of those exercises today as a means of imitating David’s character of faithful excellence in “little things” in preparation for bigger ones.
