Scripture
1 Samuel 17:1-51
32 David said to Saul, “Let no one’s heart fail because of [Goliath]; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.” 33 Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are just a boy, and he has been a warrior from his youth.” 34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father; and whenever a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb from the flock, 35 I went after it and struck it down, rescuing the lamb from its mouth; and if it turned against me, I would catch it by the jaw, strike it down, and kill it. 36 Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God.” 37 David said, “The Lord, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.” So Saul said to David, “Go, and may the Lord be with you!”
38 Saul clothed David with his armor; he put a bronze helmet on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail. 39 David strapped Saul’s sword over the armor, and he tried in vain to walk, for he was not used to them. Then David said to Saul, “I cannot walk with these; for I am not used to them.” So David removed them. 40 Then he took his staff in his hand, and chose five smooth stones from the wadi, and put them in his shepherd’s bag, in the pouch; his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine.
41 The Philistine came on and drew near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him. 42 When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was only a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. 43 The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field.” 45 But David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army this very day to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47 and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and he will give you into our hand.”
48 When the Philistine drew nearer to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. 49 David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead; the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground.
50 So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, striking down the Philistine and killing him; there was no sword in David’s hand. 51 Then David ran and stood over the Philistine; he grasped his sword, drew it out of its sheath, and killed him; then he cut off his head with it.
When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled.
Devotion
David and Goliath is a classic tale. By the grace of God, a little guy stands toe to toe with a literal giant on behalf of what is right...and emerges victorious. As someone who is "vertically challenged" and who feels called to small town ministry, I deeply appreciate any story about little people or groups overcoming seeming insurmountable odds when God is on their side. But how often do we consider the specifics of how God inspires David to defeat Goliath?
When David--a physically small shepherd boy--first offers to defeat the giant, the much larger Saul clothes the boy in his helmet, armor and give him his sword. Saul is trying to give the boy a fighting chance; the problem is that David is too small and too unaccustomed to all that stuff to even walk well...much less fight. The image of tiny David stumbling about in Saul's big, heavy armor waving is comical. There is no way he can win in all that stuff. He decides his best bet is to get rid of everyone around him would consider the biggest and best fighting gear and instead to go with what he knows: the trusty staff and sling that he has previously used to kill lions and bears.
David's battle plan seems so humble--even silly-- to modern readers. Goliath himself laughs, asking how David's "sticks" could possibly compare to his sword, spear, and javelin. What we miss (and what a Philistine like Goliath may not have known) is that a Hebrew warrior's sling was a dangerous weapon. The right rock in the hands of an ancient slinger (as the people who weilded these weapons were known) turned into an almost invisible projectile that could shatter bones, damage internal organs, and cause deadly concussions. A sling might look more humble than a javelin, but it could do enormous damage. And with God to help direct his shot, a single stone was all that it took for tiny David to bring down a giant.
When we take on something big or daunting that we haven't encountered before, we may find ourselves tempted to immediately reach for what someone else does...and the bigger and shinier it is, the better it seems. While that particular item, plan, or process may work well for someone else, that does not mean that it is necessarily the right thing for our context. Sometimes, something just doesn't fit with the skills, aptitudes, resources, or identity we have. When we try to force that thing to fit, we end up looking like David all dressed up in Saul's heavy armor--hindered by the very thing that we were sure would grant us success.
In times like this, it can be good to go back to the basics and ask a few key questions:
Who are we?
What resources do we have at our disposal and know well?
What are we already good at doing?
How might God help us use who we are and what we have tackle this particular situation?
This does not mean that we shouldn't try new things or new approaches. After all, David had never probably never tried to get a bear or lion riled up by taunting them before he killed them. He certainly hadn't used his sling on a person before. And it always good to do our research on what it is out there and what the experts recommend.
My point is that we should take care to not discount what God has already given us as we tackle the tasks before us. People may second-guess our decisions to reject what seems like the biggest or fanciest approach in favor of a humbler one. They may even laugh at our weapons of choice Still, chances are that God has already equipped us better than one might expect. And if we trust God to help us use the skills and resources at our disposal, then we too may be able to take down a giant.
Prayer
Creator and Sustainer, we give you thanks for giving us, gifts, and resources you have given me. Help us see the potential in each of them, so that when we are faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, we may use what we have been given for your glory. Amen.
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