Least Likely to Succeed

What if you were voted the “Least Likely to Succeed” in your high school yearbook? That’s what happened to the creator of Food Network, Jack Clifford. He went from a nobody to creating a multimillion-dollar network (Shandra Martinez, “Food Network Creator Funds Michigan High School Scholarship,” MLIVE.com, updated April 2, 2019, https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2016/05/the_food_network_founder_retur.html). David’s family would have called him “Least Likely to Succeed”—if they thought of him at all. He famously entered the biblical story of Israel by defeating the giant Goliath in one of the ultimate underdog stories. He was just a shepherd boy who was blessed by God and anointed by Samuel to eventually take Saul’s place as king. In the meantime, he served his father and brothers by tending to the fields and protecting the sheep from bears and lions. When the Israelites were fighting the Philistines, David’s father sent him to take food to his brothers at the front line (1 Samuel 17:12–18). David went there and eventually saw that his brothers and the army of Israel were afraid of the Philistine champion Goliath, but David was not afraid (vv. 19–37).