September 9, 2026
Why was David left to tend sheep alone? I think parents today would get arrested for sending a child out alone.
It was pretty normal for the most junior male in the family to draw this solitary and isolated assignment. What started for David in a field with sheep ended in legendary battles, a personal victory over Goliath, and an enduring connection to the Messiah.
Here's what typified this role: isolation and risk.
That sounds a lot like the experience that entrepreneurs have in the church building and in leading their business. The research is clear on the isolation part. Entrepreneurs experience about 4x the amount of depression and close to 20% more mental illness.
What is also clear from the Biblical narrative is that David was in preparation for something greater. That's what the risk was for.
For entrepreneurs and the church leaders that care about them, we have to understand that, like David, the marketplace is a place of risk and isolation that is designed to prepare them for something greater.
We hear a hunger for something more coming from entrepreneurs all of the time. They know they are made for something more, but it just seems hard to clarify.
David's early days give us insight into the experience of the entrepreneur who is grinding it out day and night, living in both isolation and risk every day.
There are two big lessons for entrepreneurs from this parallel.
1) God wants to use the marketplace experience to prepare entrepreneurs for His work. 2) The shepherd needs company.
First, they have to learn how to worship when no one else is there. Of course that's a big part of David's legacy - the Psalms. This is what grew in him in the long hours of isolation and responsibility. While we do see his moments of desperation in the Psalms, the key is that that desperation was turned into prayer.
They learn that God is a rewarder of those who trust Him, that the challenges they wrestle with in faith will result in God showing up for them.
The first lesson they have to learn if the marketplace prepares them rather than breaks them is worship and prayer as if it were breath.
The risk leads to a desire to call out to God - it's supposed to.
And if they don't learn to worship in the isolation and dark moments, their won't be on a path to something greater; they'll be on a path to being broken by the marketplace. (Of course, that's the enemy's design).
Second, God is also using the marketplace to teach entrepreneurs how to fight.
It's easy to miss the fact that they are in training for war.
David fought alone, and then David found his mighty men.
The experience of David and entrepreneurs is that nothing comes easy - and that everything wants to eat your sheep.
The level of challenge as an entrepreneur isn't always at red alert, but it can go from butterflies and songbirds to "Danger Will Robinson" in just moments.
It's always a test of confidence and faith, and entrepreneurs that grow in faith have to learn that the enemy is not people. Even if it seems that people are serving as the channel for conflict.
That's because, like David, the entrepreneur is fully exposed to the danger. They have their reputation, assets and energy all wrapped up in a venture.
Learning to fight by faith, and see the bigger forces behind what's staring you in the face, is part of maturing as a Jesus-following business owner.
The marketplace shepherds need shepherds, too.
If the lonely shepherd and entrepreneur need community, we have to ask: Who will understand their journey enough to model and teach them to reach out to God in their lonely moments?
David did fight alone and learned some important lessons, leading to the Goliath showdown.
At some point David found his people, his mighty men. Warriors for God need to find their people.
The mighty men were the team of others who had been tested and understood the battle like David did. And they were in it with him to the death.
But notice it wasn't those mighty men who kept David out of real trouble.
While they fought the physical battles with him, it was other kinds of leaders in Israel that cared for and called his soul back to health.
It was other kinds of leaders that brought him back to repentance after he had his general Uriah killed so he could keep sleeping with the general's wife.
The Biblical master class on leadership health comes from Paul in Ephesians chapter four. That's where he teaches that the pioneering entrepreneur needs all of the other gifts to actually become like Jesus.
Mighty men alone don't make a community or keep people headed toward health and maturity. After all the shouting and rah-rah, they are still left needing to be shepherded and taught.
That's why entrepreneurs need their local church. They need to be shepherded, called to repentance, joined up with worshippers living in fellowship around practical truth.
When the lessons of the marketplace come together with the care and diverse gifts of the local church, then people called to the marketplace become missionaries and catalysts instead of casualties.