Who's Your Goliath?

Who’s Your Goliath?

1 Samuel 17:1-54

            If you’re like me, you grew up on the story of David and Goliath.  We heard it in Sunday school.  Dad would tell it to me as a bedtime story, or on Sundays after church when Mom was putting the finishing touches on dinner.  We even sang a song about David and Goliath.

Only a little boy David, and only a babbling brook;

Only a little boy David, and five little stones he took.

One little stone went in the sling, the sling went round and round;

Round, and round, and round, and round, and round, and round, and round;

One little stone went up, up, up, and the giant came tumbling down.

David was one of our heroes.  Here he was, a kid like us, defeating a giant who was threatening all of Israel.  If David could accomplish so much with God’s help, we could hope to do great things for God ourselves—at least this is the message our Sunday school teachers seemed to want us to get from the story.

            Recently I read a review of a book entitled Five Stones, by Shane Stanford and Brad Martin.  The reviewer quoted from an interview with Stanford.  The authors feel that the story of David and Goliath is much more than a story for children.  It’s a story that has significance for adults as well, since all of us face, at one time or other, giants that we can’t defeat on our own.  Stanford and Martin want us to know that giants are beatable, and that we don’t have to face them in our own strength.
            As with so many other Bible stories, it is easy to become glib about David’s success.  We can pass it off as a story from ancient history, even claiming that it cannot possibly be true.  Not even God’s chosen future king of Israel could kill a giant with a slingshot and a stone. 

Some claim that God did miraculous things in the Hebrew Scriptures, but doesn’t get much involved today.  After all, we have all kinds of situations where all kinds of Davids are trying to conquer all kinds of giants and God doesn’t seem to be providing any help at all. 

            What the authors of this book are saying is that God does provide help, especially with our individual battles against our individual Goliaths.  We know the kinds of battles we fight every day.  We have our own personal proof of victories we know were not won in our own strength.  God does provide help for us in our fights against our giants, but it may not be as easily evident as it was in David’s case.  Many times the help God provides is through other people.  Perhaps our five stones come in the shape of social workers, pastors, government agencies, doctors and other medical personnel.  All of these people have expertise that is available to help us defeat our giants.

            Giants today come in many forms, some of them far more terrifying than an oversized human.  Some of the giants we face are poverty, racism, addiction, crime, brokenness, and alienation.  These can seem insurmountable, Goliath-sized problems.  How can we defeat them with only our weak resources?  Even when many of us work together we don’t seem to make much progress.  So we stand on the sidelines, afraid, like the Israelites, of engaging our Goliaths in battle for fear we will lose and become enslaved ourselves.

            Through David, God gives us a different answer.  God says, “Get involved.  Do what you can.  You get to work finding the stones and I’ll help them find their mark.  I can do so much to bring the battle to a successful conclusion if only you will do your part.  I can’t throw the stone, but I can guide it to the destination where each and every one of these giants will fall.”

            Who’s your Goliath?  Do you want to defeat him?  Get started.  God waits to help.