The Church of Christ

Life's Goliaths

Almost everybody is familiar with the old Bible story of David and Goliath.  David was a young shepherd boy who defeated Goliath, a large Philistine soldier who defied the nation of Israel.  Goliath was standing between the Israelites and the land that God wanted them to possess.  Goliath was so big and so menacing that none of God's people thought they could overcome him.       

Have you met your Goliath?  Goliath is that giant of an obstacle in your life that seems to be impossible to overcome.  For you, he may be that one huge problem that you think just might be your undoing, a difficulty so overwhelming that you feel like it is keeping you from where God wants you to be.   

Perhaps you have met your own Goliath in the past.  Or maybe he is troubling you even now.  Most of us have a Goliath or two in our lives that stand between us and God.  There are many such obstacles in the paths of our lives which appear to be so daunting that we just do not have it within ourselves to get past them so we just lose hope and give up. 

Perhaps your Goliath is an addiction, overwhelming debt or bad personal habits.  Or maybe it just seems like life itself is conspiring to keep you from being where you know God wants you to be.  I want to encourage you to confront your Goliath today, to deal with this enemy that robs your life of hope and joy.  The biblical story of Goliath is found in 1 Samuel 17 and it contains what we need to confront and overcome the Goliaths in our lives.  We can get a lot of encouragement and comfort from this old Bible story when we simply watch it play out on the backdrop of our imagination and make the necessary applications in our lives. 

King Saul had been fighting against the enemies of Israel for many years.  The Philistines were their most bitter enemy and had returned to try and conquer the nation of Israel.  Years of battle had come to a head and each army was on a mountain facing one another with a valley in between.  The Philistines had a champion that came out and taunted the Israelites.  He stood out there in that valley and challenged anyone from the Israelite army to come out and face him in combat.  He was a giant of a man, standing somewhere around 9 feet tall and he was a man of war from his youth.  The men of Israel were so scared of this man that for 40 days nobody dared answer his challenge.   

On one particular day, Goliath began shouting insults to the soldiers of Israel and he challenged them to a fight.  In 1 Samuel 17:8-11, we read that "Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, "Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us." Then the Philistine said, "This day I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other." On hearing the Philistine's words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified."4. After hearing these threats, a shepherd boy named David looked around and asked "Who is this person who is insulting the armies of God?"

In a display of unswerving confidence, this young shepherd boy not only faced Goliath, but overcame him armed only with a sling and his faith in God to deliver him.  The Bible records what David said to Goliath just before their battle. 

1 Samuel 17:45-47
"You come to me with a sword, 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 and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. Then all this assembly shall know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord's, and He will give you into our hands."

There burned in the heart of this young shepherd boy a most unusual and confident faith in God; and that certainly must have been the secret of God's special blessing in that dreadful encounter with Goliath.  And so the story goes on in 1 Samuel 17:48-50, "David hurried and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. Then David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone; and he slung it and struck the Philistine in his forehead, so that the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth.  So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him."

So what does this mean to us today?  We need to learn to carry God with us to the battle.  When David went to fight Goliath, it was not the standard resources that David was trusting in. It was not the armor of Saul or the strength of the whole Israelite army, but it was GOD.  David believed that God would defeat Goliath.  If David had gone into that battle without God, the end would have been very different.  David's strength and confidence was not in himself, but in God.  As a result the battle was the Lord's -- not his.

When we come to those times of confrontation with Goliath, our first line of defense is our relationship with God. We must trust in His strength and not what others may consider to be the best way out of our difficulties. No matter what problem or Goliath we may be facing.  God can deliver us. Our problems can be solved by trusting, obeying and relying upon God!

Most of us, like the Israelites standing back hear the threats of Goliath and loose heart. We would really like to have the courage of David and his trust in God, but we don't quite get around to entering the field of battle.  David's faith in God did him no good until he went down there and faced his Goliath.  We have a role to fulfill in conquering Goliath as well.  We can have all the faith and confidence in the world but if we fail to act on that faith, if we fail to meet Goliath face to face, there will be no battle for God to win for us.  

David carried God into battle with him and the battle belonged to the Lord.  David's faith was so strong, so sure that he acted on that faith and carried God with him to the fight and as a result, the battle belonged to God.  God was his shield and his strength, but David had to carry that into the battle with him.  There are no problems that we can not face if we carry God with us into battle to meet our Goliaths.