The Question 008 | Giants

For the Glory of God | Giants

David Slays Goliath by Gustave Dore, 1866

Every kid who has gone to Sunday School knows the story of David and Goliath (found in 1 Samuel 17); the classic flannel-graph of the cute little kid in the cupid-dress with a slingshot who kills a big scowling giant and all the people cheer and the moral of the story is that the little guy can win! Yay! 

But is that all there is to the story or is there something more?

Here's the way I see it. 

The story of David doesn't start in the valley where the giant and the boy battle. It doesn't even start in the army camp. It starts years earlier, when David was just a little boy. David's family had some flocks of sheep, and part of David's duties were to care for and protect those sheep. Sounds like a relatively easy job, until you consider that sheep make great snacks for lions and bears. Being a shepherd was tough work, and dangerous. Over time and out of necessity, David gained quite some skill with the sling. The Scriptures even say that David had killed a lion and a bear by himself, all before he was 13. 

So when he comes to the army camp and hears the bully Goliath is threatening the Israelites and speaking out against God, David gets angry. On one side is the Philistines with their giant champion, and on the other is Israel with their king who has recently been rejected by God. Not great odds. But David didn't care much about odds, and the story goes on to say that David called the giant out, who was at least twice David's height and a well-seasoned warrior. 

David gives this speech, which can be found in 1 Samuel 17. 

"You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a 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. This 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 host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hand.”

David proceeds to whip his sling once around like a softball pitch and throw a rock about the size of a tennis ball in excess of 60 miles an hour at Goliath. The account in scripture says that "the stone sank into his (Goliath's) forehead, and he fell on his face to the ground."

A few grisly moments later, David has cut off the fallen giant's head and hoisted it into the air for all to see. The entire Philistine army sees their fallen champion and lose heart. Every soldier turns around and runs away, and the Israelites win the battle. 

There are two main points I see illustrated in this story. 

1 - God will use anyone to do anything 

It doesn't matter who you are or who you aren't. It doesn't matter if you're too big or too small or too loud. It doesn't matter what you have done or haven't done. God's got a place for you in His plan, and is more than willing to put you to good use. 

I can't say how many times I've heard the phrase: "Somebody should do something about _______." What if the somebody was you? What if you could do the something? I truly believe in my soul that God works everyday through ordinary people, by showing them "somethings" that need to be done and equipping them to do so. 

2 - God will often use what you're good at to carry out His mission 

This isn't to say that God doesn't use what you're not good at. There's lots of stories of God choosing the unlikeliest of heroes to do amazing things. But these men and women often have something they're already good at, a skill or talent, that God uses. 

For David, it was his skill with the sling. He didn't spend his childhood practicing with his sling, hoping to one day he'd slay a giant. A the time, David knew he needed to learn the sling to take care of his sheep. And so he did. Over time, with practice, he got better at it. Imagine the hours spent in meadows, trying to knock stones off of stumps or aiming at branches in the trees. David didn't wake up the morning he killed Goliath and instantly know how to use a sling. He'd practiced and prepared and, when the opportunity presented itself, he knew what to do. And God used David's skill to rescue a whole nation from slavery to the Philistines. 

The world is awfully full of giants, isn't it?

Full of sickness, corruption, desperate need and absolute poverty. Our systems are broken and our hearts are as well. We as people, as individuals and as a collection, need God as starving men are desperate for food, like an infant cries for mother. Headlines are full of corruption and conflict. 

But the world is also full of Davids, and of slings. We are the Davids, and our skills are our slings. We are underdogs with gifts and talents that can be used to go toe-to-toe with giants. Isn't that amazing?

These skills we have aren't automatically mastered, of course. They have to be shaped with discipline, with time and sweat and investment. The apostle Paul wrote about this in 1 Corinthians 9:26-27: 

"So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to other I myself should be disqualified."

Paul spoke of living as if it was a sport, as if it was about discipline and all-encompassing body and soul dedication. I think he was right.  

Don't run aimlessly. Don't punch at the wind. 

Be focused. Be disciplined. 

Slay giants. 

The Question

What is your sling? What are your skills that can be used to face giants? How will you sharpen them and hone them to be useful?

Dark Was the Night, Brighter Is the Dawn

                                                                                    

"In a semblance of the gardener 
God walked again in the garden, 

in the cool not of the evening 
but the dawn." 

-GK Chesterton 

There's a beautiful passage in Scripture that speaks of God "walking in the garden in the cool of the day" (Genesis 3:8 ESV). It seems so ordinary and simple, like taking a walk around the block after dinner in the cool after a hot summer day. God walked in the garden. I imagine that some days, man and woman walked with Him. 

I wonder what God and the people talked about on their walks. Perhaps they had the sort of silent conversation that can sometimes occur in the company of dear friends. Or God might have only listened as Adam and Eve remarked on just how wonderful the garden was. Everything I think is, of course, just speculation, but it's interesting to dream about. 

I love going on walks with people. My girlfriend lives on five acres of woods, and we love to  take long walks, down the hills and by the creek. The sun bursts through the branches with such unspeakable elegance, and in those moments I am bathed in the soft waters of contentment. The creek babbles away, sliding over itself with persistent peace, and the squirrels burst with frenzied energy through the crackling carpet of leaves. I cannot be discontented when I am there at that creek, sitting on a fallen log with a loved one, taking a few moments to do nothing but absorb the complexity and simplicity of creation. 

After Jesus rose from the dead, He took a while to walk around the garden where He had been buried. Gardens seem to have significance to God. In Genesis, man rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden. Before Jesus went to be crucified, He prayed to God for hours in the Garden of Gethsemane, and after Jesus had died, He rose from the dead in a garden. 

Gardens are places of life, and places of death, and places of death leading to life. Walking among the trees by the creek, I can see this saga unfolding before my very eyes. I can feel the frenetic scrabble for life and also the serenity of rest. 

God walked in the garden in the cool of the day, in the dusk of all goodness, as if to say goodbye before the garden was destroyed. 

Later, Jesus walks in a different garden, this time in the dawn, as if to greet the newly redeemed earth. 

Perhaps the night has passed, and, dark as it is, the day has come. Now we find ourselves in the grayness of the dawn, in which everything slowly becomes illuminated. 

Dark was the night, brighter is the dawn.