What’s your favorite Old Testament story? Many would say it’s the story of Joseph, for it’s a great story—a young man sold as a slave by his brothers who rises to a position of influence and importance in that foreign land and is eventually reunited and reconciled with his family. It’s a story with unbelievable plot twists and surprising turns of events . Some might say it’s the story of Moses—an orphaned Hebrew baby who grew up in Egyptian halls of power but, after years of self-imposed exile, identified with the people of his birth and led his countrymen to freedom from slavery, overcoming numerous obstacles along the way. Perhaps it’s the story of Joshua—Moses’ successor who oversaw the subjugation of the Promised Land, miraculous crossing of the Jordan River, and the conquest of Jericho.
The Old Testament is full of great stories—Esther … Ruth … Daniel in the lions’ den … the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace … Elijah and the prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel. But in terms of popularity, it’s hard to top the one I want us to look at in the next few posts—the story of David and Goliath. Part of the reason is because everyone likes an underdog. Like many folks, if I’m watching a game and have no rooting interest, I’ll pull for the underdog. That’s part of what makes March Madness—the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament so intriguing—trying to guess where the upsets will come and who will pull them off. We know they’re going to happen but figuring out where they’ll happen and which highly ranked team will go down is part of what makes the first and second round games some of the most exciting TV in all of sports.
The story of David and Goliath is a lot like a #16 seed taking on and defeating a #1 seed. It’s a classic story of an underdog turning the tables—a perceived mismatch not going as anticipated and the upstart pulling off an upset of epic proportions. But the reason to look at this story is not just because of its engaging plot line. The reason to do it is because of its instructive potential. For this is more than the story of young man emerging from obscurity to save the day for good guys. It’s account of someone facing up to his giants—dealing with obstacles, barriers, and situations in his life that are bigger than he is and emerging victorious. That’s a topic that’s relevant to all of us!
For we’ve all got giants we have to face. We all have things in life that intimidate us … that introduce fear and trembling … that unnerve us and oppress us. They cast a shadow over our lives and toy with us the way Goliath toyed with and taunted army of Israel. They shout threats at us. They defy us. It feels like they exist for no reason other than to give us grief.
I don’t know what your giants are, but I know you’ve got them. We all do! It could be an illness or medical condition. It could be a circumstance or situation in your family. It could be a memory or some hurtful thing from your past you just can’t seem to get beyond. It could be a habit that’s got you in its grip and won’t let go. It could be some person in your life that arouses feelings of envy, jealousy, or inadequacy. It could be related to your personal finances—there’s a cloud of debt lingering over you because of some poor decisions and it feels like you’re never going to overcome it. It could be tied to some situation at work. Bottom line: we’ve all got giants, and we all feel like the army of Israel felt when Goliath came out and taunted them. We feel demoralized and our heart sinks when we consider how big they are. Just as Goliath wanted the Hebrew people to be dismayed and afraid to where fear would cripple them and limit their ability to respond, so the giants in our lives often incapacitate us because of the dread they introduce. But similarly, just as David’s life changed dramatically as a result of his tangle with Goliath, for many of us, if we could successfully defeat that giant in our life, we’d move to whole new level. The only thing that’s standing between us and a bright future is that pesky, bothersome giant. But it’s been standing there for quite some time, and it’s not going away.
In this series of posts, I want us to dig in and examine this classic story. My hope is we can gain some clues and insights into how we can tackle and hopefully defeat the giants in our lives. But before we do, three quick observations about giants:
(1) Every giant introduces us to ourselves. How we respond and handle a giant gives us good picture of who we are. An encounter with a giant doesn’t fashion character so much as it reveals it. When we come away from the encounter, we come away with keen sense of who we really are.
(2) People who reach giant positions have defeated giants along the way. Those who achieve greatness have not done so without facing and overcoming giants along the way. I was listening to podcast a while back which referenced an article in which they surveyed just over 400 people who have excelled professionally and experienced some measure of success. They looked into their lives and tried to find some common traits or characteristics that would show the secret of their effectiveness. The only common thread was that, out of 413 people surveyed, 392 had faced unbelievable problems or obstacles. Like David, they had successfully faced and defeated some giants in their life. People who emerge on top are, quite often, people who’d previously been under … who’d come up against some giants and not buckled or wilted but summoned the courage to take them on. It reminds me of the statement by Booker T. Washington: “You cannot judge success by what position a person has; you can only judge success by what they had to overcome to get there.” By and large people who reach giant positions have defeated giants along way.
(3) Giants are often the tools by which God fashions us for bigger things. They are the means by which He prepares us for future—the mechanism He uses to grow us and build substance into our lives. My guess is if we could plot our spiritual growth on a graph, I dare say our seasons of greatest growth would also be those times of greatest difficulty and challenge … those occasions where we were forced to step up and tackle a situation—where we had to confront a giant. For it is in those situations God helps us become the person He wants us to be.
Having said that, lets look at the story:
Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Sokoh in Judah. They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim, between Sokoh and Azekah. Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines. The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them.
A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels; on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him.
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 armies 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.
For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand.
Now Jesse said to his son David, “Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp. Take along these ten cheeses to the commander of their unit. See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance from them. They are with Saul and all the men of Israel in the Valley of Elah, fighting against the Philistines.”
Early in the morning David left the flock in the care of a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry. Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other. David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and asked his brothers how they were. As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear. (1 Sam. 17:1-11, 16-24, NIV)
It sounds strange, but the practice was fairly common. To minimize bloodshed and the loss of life, each army would send out a champion. One man would be dispatched to represent the entire army. They’d battle one-on-one, and the loser’s army would submit themselves to winners. That’s the situation here. Even though the respective armies were assembled on the hills on opposite sides of a valley, the Philistines were proposing that things be settled champion vs. champion rather than army vs. army. And Goliath—a skilled soldier and intimidatingly large man who was decked out in state-of-the-art military accoutrements, was the Philistine champion. His enormity unnerved them to no end. No one from the Hebrew side volunteered or dared to step up.
And this introduces us to a significant point of application: Seldom do giants stand alone. Just as Goliath represented more than himself—he represented the entire Philistine army—so the giants you and I face seldom stand by themselves. Most problems represent much more than what we see in the moment. But here’s the deal: Like David, if we can confront and defeat the giant, multiple benefits will come from it. When David defeated Goliath, it was more than just one man defeating another. It was a victory for an entire army—the entire country.
Sometimes, for us, it may feel like there’s a whole lot of opposition, but it often traces back to fact we haven’t taken on a particular giant. There’s a monster we’ve been ducking … avoiding … afraid to confront. If we were to get in there, do battle, and face it successfully, a lot of the trepidation and fearfulness would drop by the wayside.
That’s the dynamic here. According to v. 16, the Philistines sent out Goliath twice a day for the past forty days. He’s been taunting them and mocking them, calling them weak-kneed, faint-hearted, gutless cowards. And to this point, no one from Israel answered the call. No one—least of all King Saul—did anything to respond in a gallant, fearless, and courageous way.
As the story points out, David was not part of Saul’s army. His three oldest brothers were. The youngest of eight, he was back home tending his family’s flocks. Jesse—their dad—was old, advanced in years, and not in a position to go. So he instructed David to take break from his shepherding duties and go down and check on them—to deliver a care package and bring back a report. So David turned his responsibilities over to someone else, left in the early morning, and went down to the battle site so he could do as his father asked.
When he arrived, the army was getting placed in position and shouting their war cry. Now they didn’t plan to do anything ... remember, Goliath had been taunting them for forty days and no one had stepped up. They were just going through the motions, but no one was taking any meaningful action. They were like a football team that put on their uniforms and charged out of locker room and onto field to the sound of the fight song. The players jumped around and knocked helmets but, after the national anthem played, they all decided to turn around and head back inside.
That picture is illustrative of how we often respond to the giants in our lives. We assemble together, put on our war gear, and shout the battle cry. But we don’t ever deal with the problem. The longer the giant stands there and taunts and mocks, and the longer we refuse to deal with it, the more difficult it becomes to step up.
That’s the situation David stepped into. While he was down there, he just so happened to witness Goliath doing what he’d been doing for almost six weeks. He stepped forward from the Philistine ranks and shouted his usual defiance. And when Israel’s army heard it, they ran in fear and went back into their tents like a bunch of cowardly sissies.
When you pause and get a sense of the situation, you realize what a pathetic situation it was. The Hebrew army looked the part and sounded the part. But when it came to actually stepping up and tackling the problem, they didn’t act the part. To a person, they ran for cover and hid. They acted like ostriches and buried their heads in the sand. David, however, didn’t. Which brings me to this point—one of the major points of application from this story: Giant-killers don’t start out as giant killers. David was a shepherd; you wouldn’t find the words “Giant Killer” on his resume. He wasn’t a gladiator or seasoned combatant. The only reason he was there was because his father asked him to run an errand. He was a young man who had looked after and cared for the family’s flocks and played music on the side.
What enabled him to step up and become a giant killer? David was faithful in the small tasks. In v. 17-19, when his dad asked him to do something—go to his brothers and deliver some food and supplies—he did it. He wasn’t doing anything spectacular or particularly noteworthy. He was simply being faithful to what his father wanted him to do.
And by doing that, he was preparing himself to meet a giant. As I mentioned earlier—a crisis doesn’t make your character so much as it reveals the character that’s already there. If you expect to step up when difficulty comes but haven’t been cultivating faithfulness along the way, you’ll come up short. But when we are obedient in the small things—when we’re dependable at those times when no one’s looking and faithful in routine tasks the Father asks us to do—we’ll find that when we encounter an obstacle, there’s a foundation that’s been built into our lives we can draw on that will help us step up and meet the challenge.
David went from shepherd boy to national hero. Why? Because he was at the right place at the right time? Yes—in part. But it was also because he was willing to step up and confront a giant when no one else was. For at those times when no one else was looking—away from limelight and in the routine occurrences of everyday life—he was being faithful and developing a constancy of character that produced a foundation for his life that served him well and imbued him with courage.
Some of us are probably staring down our giants. We’re looking them over and trying to get up the nerve to face them. Perhaps we have don’t have a great deal to work with because we really haven’t built into our lives a consistency of character through day-in, day-out obedience to God. We haven’t demonstrated obedience in the little things and manufactured habits that build into our life a foundation that can support us when challenges come along and present themselves.
David was an everyday, ordinary person who did an extraordinary thing … in large part because of his faithfulness in the ordinary things of life. That, I believe, is where killing giants always begins—in courageously tackling the unremarkable day-to-day things God brings into our lives. Granted, there are a lot more lessons this story has to teach, and we’ll get to them in the upcoming posts. But for today, lets zero in on this one and focus on whether we’re being obedient and faithful in the everyday, ordinary, nondescript things of life that God places before us.