David and Goliath

We too may quite often be ‘dismayed and terrified’, when we are faced with something scary. In the past for me this has included when I have had to speak up in a meeting of the Heads of Department at school, when I was about to do a practical exam as a trainee lifeguard, and when there was any spot of more than usual turbulence on a plane mid-flight. To be fair, the above reaction from the Israelites to Goliath was understandable. This man was huge, confident in his aggression, and he probably had a bit of a track record.

David’s reactions, however, were inspirational. Firstly, he was outraged that this godless man was insulting the God of the Israelites, even in front of the Israelite king. Then he offered to fight the giant. In his mind, even though he was of much smaller stature than the giant, he had met worse enemies before. Lions attacking his flocks had been frightening adversaries. He had dealt with these in the past, armed with only a slingshot. Why should this big hulk of a man be any different? But most of all, David declared, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty”. David knew and was confident that his God was with him in the fight. This was the God he probably got to know very intimately on the hillsides of his home country, when things were quiet and he was isolated with his flocks.

May we, in the face of real and sometimes very deep fears, remember our God, and that He is for us. Too often, in our state of panic, we fall back on our own means and resources to deal with the frightening thing before us. But may we have that same connection to God as David had in every area of our lives. May we find the equivalent of the quiet hillsides of David’s homeland to seek that intimate relationship with God ourselves, a relationship that will not fail to shore us up in times of trouble.