Why is he a cobbler?

This is why Aimee and I have been referring to David as, "David-frikkin-Novak," (in the most positive sense possible). Because he blows our minds and rocks our faces off at every turn. This is what (among other things) he asked me during my one-on-one time with him yesterday. Why is my character a cobbler?

I didn't know. My faulty memory of the original text said he was maybe, possibly a cobbler. But in fact he was a cobbler because I decided. And this decision was, at least in part, the result of a thick web of my personal beliefs, theology, hermeneutics, etc. My instinctive, almost thoughtless choice came from a deep well of thought. It was just a well that, like many of the Patriarch Isaac's wells, had been vindictively covered up by the Canaanites of my mind. And David fought off the Canaanites and re-opened the well.

Holy cow! What an experience. I think about the question of why a lot when it comes to ministry. I think that many ministers and especially children's ministers don't ask this question enough. They tend to ask WHAT curriculum will we use, and HOW are we going to do Sunday school, and WHO are we going to have for the summer event. But these questions relate to low-level concepts of element and program. Asking WHY do we do ministry, WHY  do we have Sunday school, and WHY do we hold a summer event deals with the much higher levels of model and philosophy and, as such, inform the whats, the hows and the whos. But if you don't think about the whys, if you don't ask them, then you will be informing your program with default, and often faulty presumptions and perspectives.

I had never thought of asking "why" of my stories.

Mind blown.