Giants

Dad: I heard you caught a big fish sweetheart, want to tell me about it?

Daughter: It was bigger than me!! I thought it was going to pull me into the water!

Dad: *Laughs* your mother said it was no bigger than your foot, and that you reeled it in like a pro. 

Daughter: Honest dad, it was BIG! It had rows of long jagged teeth and its body was stained red with blood!!

Dad: *Laughing harder* honey it was an Alaskan salmon, not a shark! and that’s their natural color! 

 

We are all prone to exaggerating, and not just to beef up stories. Sometimes we go so far as to beef up our problems too. Saying things like, “this is the worst!”, “I’m stuck!”, “I can’t do this!”, and ultimately, “I give up!”

we take our giants and make mountains out of them.

David never once believed that the bear was anything but a bear, and the lion just a lion. He struck both dead and when he finally came face to face with a giant, he saw just a giant, and at the heart of it…just a man.

You’re probably thinking, “Riley the kid killed a bear and a lion, two terrifying creatures to face alone, and a man who was a giant compared to David and all the people of Israel!” You’re right, he was a trained killer and roughly 9 ft tall, if anyone had earned the title of “giant” it was Goliath.

However, the spirit David carried within him was taller, more powerful, and had proven so in David’s life when his father’s flock was threatened by predators. You see, David never allowed himself a moment’s hesitation, a flicker of fear, that would make monsters appear greater than what they were in his mind. To him, they were nothing, and in fact, already conquered.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if we viewed our struggles as “already defeated”?

David was a zealous man, and when he was faced with opposition he was filled with righteous anger to put an end to it! It wasn’t what Goliath looked like that made him so mad, it was what he was saying. Goliath was making a mockery of God’s people and ultimately, challenging God.

The lion and the bear, they had sought to make a mockery of David’s authority over his flock. They sought to steal that which was entrusted to him by his father, and this Goliath was no different, he wanted to steal the authority of the Israelites, wanted them to be enslaved by fear, to give up the authority entrusted to them by their Father, God.

The Israelites had made a mountain out of the giant. And could any of them have defeated him if they believed like David? Yes. Remember, he was just a boy, too small for King Saul’s armor, not trained in military combat, not the favored child of the family (he had elder brothers already fighting), he was just a shepherd boy. And yet, God used him to crush Goliath in a single blow!

Do you know that God can do the same to your giants and that he wants to? You can carry the heart of David and crush them underfoot! The key is to view your problems through the eyes of all-powerful God. If you don’t, the flesh will make you think you’re surrounded by mountains, when really, God has given you the power and authority to stand at the very peak of them.

Don’t bow to fear, stand tall…place the stone in your sling, pull back, and let them have it!!

Become the mountain to your giants.

 

 

 

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