For years I lay unnoticed in the brook.

Water polished my rough edges. Seasons passed over me. Travelers stepped across me without a second thought. I wondered if this quiet stream would be my entire existence.

Then one day, a shepherd came.

His hands searched carefully among hundreds of stones. He did not choose the largest. He did not choose the most beautiful.

He chose me.

He turned me over in his hand as though he knew something about me that I did not know about myself.

Then... he placed me into his shepherd's bag.

At first I was thrilled.

"I've been chosen!"

But as the days passed, excitement gave way to confusion.

It was dark inside the pouch.

Nothing happened.

I could hear sheep bleating. I could hear David singing to the Lord. I felt him running through valleys and climbing hills, but I remained hidden.

Sometimes I wondered if he had forgotten me.

Why choose me only to bind me inside this little bag?

Was this all there was?

Then one morning everything changed.

David reached into the pouch.

His fingers wrapped around me with purpose.

For the first time I understood.

I had never been imprisoned.

I had been prepared.

The bag had not been my destination.

It had been my protection.

Moments later I found myself cradled in a sling.

The cords tightened around me.

Again I felt restrained.

Again I wondered.

Then the sling began to whirl.

Faster.

Faster.

Until suddenly...

I was released.

In one breathtaking instant I became what I had been chosen to become.

The very thing that had held me became the means by which I was sent.

Only after leaving the sling did I understand why I had first been placed in the bag.

Perhaps you feel like that stone today.

Hidden.

Restricted.

Wondering why God has placed you where nothing seems to happen.

But the Shepherd never gathers stones without purpose.

Sometimes He binds us up because He intends to send us farther than we could ever go on our own.

As Abigail wisely told David:

"The soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the LORD thy God..." (1 Samuel 25:29)

The stone is bound—but only until the appointed moment.

For the Shepherd knows exactly when to open the bag, place the stone in the sling, and send it toward the purpose for which it was chosen.

What feels like restraint today may simply be preparation for tomorrow.

The Shepherd is not hiding you.

He is aiming you.