Dealing With Problems In Life

? Ethnicity

? Economics

? Intelligence

? Spirituality

? Personal appearances

? Talents and skills

? Personalities

Another thing that distinguishes us from each other is how we handle problems. We all have problems: But some folks do not have the slightest idea how to deal with them. While others do.

Some folks are very clever in how they solve their problems.

Illus: A Russian businessman walks into a Swiss bank in Geneva and asks for a $100 loan for one year. He offers his luxury Mercedes car as collateral. The collateral is too good, and the bank manager approves the loan. A year later, the Russian comes back. He repays the loan and the 10% interest and is ready to collect his car. Finally, the puzzled bank manager dares to ask him: "Excuse me, sir, could you tell me: did you really need that $100 so badly? In order to get the money, you left your luxury car with us for a whole year!" The Russian replied, "I was going to be out of the country for one year – where else in Geneva can I find such a great parking place for just $10 a year?"

It is very clever how some folks solve their problems.

? Young Larry stopped by the corner grocery store and read the following list to the clerk, “How much would it cost to buy:

-10 pounds sugar at $1.25 a pound,

-4 pounds coffee at $1.50 a pound,

-2 pounds butter at $1.10 a pound,

-2 bars soap at $.83 each?”

? The store clerk said, "Twenty-two dollars and thirty-six cents."

? Larry said, "If I gave you three ten dollar bills how much change would I get?" The clerk said "Seven dollars and sixty-four cents," Larry said, as he disappeared through the door, "I don't want to buy the items...that's our arithmetic lesson for tomorrow, and I needed some help with it."

We all have problems in life and the thing that distinguishes us from each other is how we handle these problems.

Let’s focus in on David in the Old Testament who had a problem and see how he handled that problem.

Before we get into how David handled this problem let’s look at why he had a problem with Goliath.

(1) HIS SIZE

Look at 1 Samuel 17:4. We read, “And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.”

Notice, the Hebrew text says Goliath was “six cubits and a span” tall. Since no one knows for sure exactly how long a “cubit” or a “span” was back then, scholars’ estimate Goliath to have been between 9’2” and 11’4” tall.

We are told by tall people one thing that they get tired of is people asking them:

? “How tall are you?”

? “How is the weather up there?”

David was an ordinary sized young man, so he had to deal with this disadvantage.

But also, he had to deal with the disadvantage of-

(2) STRENGTH

Illus: One day, three men were hiking and unexpectedly came upon a large raging, violent river. They needed to get to the other side, but had no idea of how to do so.

· The first man prayed, saying, "Please God, give me the strength to cross this river." Poof! God gave him big arms and strong legs, and he was able to swim across the river in about two hours, after almost drowning a couple of times.

· Seeing this, the second man prayed to God, saying, "Please God, give me the strength, and the tools to cross this river." Poof! God gave him a rowboat and he was able to row across the river in about an hour, after almost capsizing the boat a couple of times.

· The third man had seen how this worked out for the other two, so he also prayed to God saying, "Please God, give me the strength and the tools, and the intelligence to cross this river." And poof! God turned him into a woman. She looked at the map, hiked upstream a couple of hundred yards, and then walked across the bridge.

Goliath was a huge powerful man. The very weight of Goliath’s armor is an indication of how strong he was.

No one knows for sure exactly how much a “shekel” weighed back then and there were two standards:

? The Babylonian shekel (It was the lightest shekel).

? The Syrian shekel (It was the heavier shekel).

With this in mind let’s see what I Samuel 17:5-7 tells us:

· His coat of armor weighed 5000 shekels (90 to 220 lbs.)

· His spear staff was “like a weaver’s beam”—at least 2” thick.

· Even the head of his spear weighed 600 shekels (10 to 25 lbs.)