The After Sermon /// Why do we waste the wilderness when God doesn't?

Welcome to The After Sermon by Plum Creek Church.

This bite-sized discussion is where we get to sit down with our communicators and ask a few follow up questions connected to the weekend message, unpack it on a deeper level, and explore how it all relates to our journey of following Jesus more fully.

The story of David and Goliath is often remembered as an underdog story. But what if that's not the point?

In this episode of The After Sermon, Eric Parks unpacks why David's greatest advantage wasn't his sling—it was his identity. Long before he stepped into the valley, God had been shaping him in quiet, hidden places no one else noticed.

Together we explore why God often does his deepest work in seasons of obscurity, why he never wastes our past, and how the hidden moments of today may be preparing us for tomorrow.

If you've ever wondered whether your current season matters, this conversation is for you.

This conversation is also available on our YouTube channel along with the full sermon that this discussion is based on.

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@plumcreekchurch

You can learn more about Plum Creek Church by visiting our website as well.

Website: https://plumcreek.church/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to the after sermon where we get to sit down with our communicators from the weekend and dig a little bit deeper into the sermon. Yes. Eric Parks.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hi.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Well, I will say, walking up here, someone asked me if I was a farmer. I said, Are you saying my bit? I look like a farmer. It was a youngster, too. It was like a 16-year-old kid, and I know her, and she she was wearing overalls. Was she like Hey, you're wearing overalls? I'm not a farmer. You are not. I have don't have a green thumb.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Although you are from Rockford.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Amen. They don't really farm there. Yeah. Not in Rockford so much.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Really? No. See, I always thought they did. Oh.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Well, welcome, farmer.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

So I am the communicator. I just wanted to establish that I am the communicator.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

He is the communicator, and I've got a couple questions for you. Cool. So uh our new series, Flannelgraph. Yep. Which I brought some show and tell.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Oh, I love it.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Look at this.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Oh, bro. It's a real flannel. That's a real flannel.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

That's a real one. That's what that's what a flannel graph is. Wow. So it's felt on felt.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Technology. That's right. 1980s technology.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

So we chose the name Flannelgraph because what we wanted to do was not just for nostalgia's sake, but like go to these stories that we know. Yeah. Totally. And like look for something in it that's not what we most likely go to in our brains when we hear, oh, David and Goliath. Right. Um, so for you, in preparation for this message, like what's hiding in this story that you know maybe we don't normally see.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Well, I would say for sure, when I, you know, that's what I love about just coming back to scriptures. The spirit will like guide you into something new. But actually, the thing that I think was hiding in this was all about for me identity. Like we see it as a story of against all odds. Yeah. And certainly on the surface, there's you know, it is about a small guy fighting a big guy, one guy with a sling, other guy with armor. But really, for me, when I read the text, I went, gosh, this feels like an identity story. This feels like a kid who his whole life pretty much had been told he didn't measure up, that you know, he was the runt of the kids. Uh, when they were looking for a king, they left him out. When he showed up, they all were like, his brother's like, bro, go home. Go home. Like, you don't know what you're doing. Yeah. Um, and yet he had a sense of who he was in God, like that he could ignore.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Hey, you don't know what I've been up to in that there's definitely a I noticed this, you know, in looking at this again, there's an extreme amount of confidence. Tons, man. And I think the question we started asking is, where did this come from?

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Well, and that's just it, it wasn't just like self-belief. He had spent a ton of time with the Lord, and he says it like he's like, the Lord's gonna deliver you into my hands, like the Lord, he gives all the credit for where it came from. But there was a level of confidence that comes from knowing who you are. Like I know who I am, and I know who God is, and I know who he says I am. That's why in I think 1 Samuel 16, or maybe yeah, like the chapter four, it says, Yeah, um, man looks on the outward appearance. That's not what God does. He looks to the heart, right? He looks somewhere deep. And uh, I just think this is an identity story. Uh otherwise, you just go home, right? You just go like, oh yeah, you're right. Uh I'm not a fighter, a warrior. I'm really just here to deliver food. And uh literally, I'm literally a grub hub. I'm great, and I should just go home. And he's like, Wait, did he just say, did he just talk trash on God? Yeah, and then you can almost see the kid looking around going, and so nobody's gonna do anything? Like, nobody. Okay, I'll fight him. And he was legitimately ready to fight him, and then you know, get gets the armor put on him, and he's like, Well, I can't wear all this, it's not me. That's the identity piece. He's like, That's your armor, saw this. Is your stuff, it's not me. And he lays it all on the ground. You can almost see, like, he lays all of it on the ground and says, No, God's been training me in a wilderness in a field in in these quiet moments. I have supreme confidence in him and who he made me to be, and I'm just going to walk in that. I think that's so cool.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

So that's and that to me, like that identity for David was formed in these obscure years, the these quiet spaces. And what it made me think about was like how we've been on this, you know, discipleship journey through follow. And it made me think of the quiet moments listening to our rabbi. Yeah, like it may not be shifting mountains in that moment, but what is it preparing us for in the future? And so I'd love for you to talk a little bit about the wilderness.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Man, we could do a whole sermon series. I know we could. Because we live in a culture now where much of our purpose is defined by how many followers we have and what kind of life I can broadcast. So nothing is quiet. Right. There is no silence. It is like, this is what I'm doing, and here's where I'm going, and you know the thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Like, why didn't David have an Instagram account? I mean, I mean, he was talking all he was talking about his slingshot. Bro, I got the newest model.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Just got the bear today. Um, but we do, right? We live in this culture of like um anonymity is not to be pursued. Um, and there is almost a sense like, well, if nobody knows my name, well, then I need to make sure people know my name. And so we do all the things to try to bring, you know, attention to ourselves. I think David's story is one where he was comfortable being anonymous, being in a field, in some ways, being the runt. Yeah. Like, and it teaches us something, both and we were talking about this before. You see this, you know, in Jesus' life, that those three years of his life was public. Yeah. But the rest, which we know very little about, we don't know what he was doing. We don't know. We was anonymous. Um is that David? Right? Like, yeah, and and I think there's something to be learned in that in in the wilderness in the desert, um, out in the field. The Lord does stuff in us, teaches us, trains us. Um, it's why in Matthew chapter four it says that it was the spirit that led Jesus to the wilderness. Because he does this work out of the public view. Um, and notice that's what why this story is so powerful to me is yes, God was there. He certainly got all of the credit. Um, I believe like he directed that rock. Um but I also know that everything David needed for that battle was all built, not in that valley, it was built in an anonymous field somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

I think that's the I think that's the cool part is like though we may not know much of Jesus' you know life, maybe we actually know more about David's childhood than we do of Jesus. But like even though we may not know, it is clear that God did something in David's life in those years to then door-dash some loaves of bread to his brothers, and then all of a sudden be like, wait a minute, what's going on here? Like, I can do something about this, and God doesn't waste anything.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

No, like I think that's the part uh I often hear, and it grieves me is people are like, Man, I've wasted so many years. Yeah, I'm like, Yeah, well, it's really interesting that um God literally you see it in nature, right? Where nothing gets wasted, everything alive turns back into like fertilizer. We get grounded, he wastes nothing ever. And I feel like that is a great way to see all of our lives. He's not wasting our pain, he's not wasting that journey. Um, he's not wasting those seasons of anonymity. And um, in fact, he's probably building something for the giants you will face. And we will face giants of all sorts. And Malcolm Gladwell, in his book, where he covers some of this, he talks about giants as these oppositional forces, these the sicknesses, these uh things that come against us that fill the entire screen of our entire vision, right? You can't see beyond it. That's but but but and that's what Goliath was. So from the metaphor perspective, God is God was building David long before this moment, and because he was building him long before his moment, when he walked into this moment, he was like, I'm good, I know who I am, and I know who God is. Yeah. So he didn't put not he put nothing in David's hand. He put nothing in his hand, it was already there.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Yeah. Well, and I think that's the interesting thing about uh our wilderness seasons or or times where you you mentioned this, where like, you know, there's seasons where like maybe we were just like we kind of edit it out, or we, you know, we're like, oh, like, you know, that was like that's not relevant to who I am today. But I think that point with you that you just made where God wastes nothing, like I think we can still look back to those times that maybe we didn't in our minds, maybe we got swallowed up by the moment. Sure. Maybe we didn't make the most of it, but like we can still look back and see how God has been shaping us through that and still apply that to what we're facing today.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

And I ultimately think it comes down to giving God all of those moments, right? Like learning how when it is time, I mean, which I he did. He said, This battle is the Lord's, this victory will be his. Um, yes, he did train me, and I am confident, but I am confident in him who has led me against a lion and a bear who trained me in these fields, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:05

I mean, sorry, I just went back to the lion beard.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

We gotta you gotta watch the watch it well with that. Yeah, you gotta watch it. That's a great like segue into go watch the message.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Yeah, I think we're gonna end there. Um, so you guys know the drill by now. If you want to hear the entire message that this conversation was based on, head to our YouTube channel, check it out wherever you get your podcast, and we'll see you next time.