How To Face Your Giants Series

All credit goes to Max Lucuado for these series of stories of

Facing your Giants, Story of David

This is a very familiar story. This story has been preached, read and told about for many generations but let us look at this thing and see can we lift some nuggets from this text to help us with our everyday life.

We find David, a ruddy, slender fellow who is kneeling down by the brook. He is not looking for a place to go swimming, nor is he looking for a place to drink some water from, but David is looking for some rocks! He is looking for just the right smooth stones to put in his bag.

- You can relate; you have thrown rocks before. You want to find the right rock. (Give examples)

- one that you can grip just right, one that you can hold just right, one that you can sling the furthest.

David is not scared. (Somebody say: In order to face your giants, you cannot be scared)

Then there is Goliath staring down the hillside. (Goliath represents our Giant!)

Goliath is nine feet, nine inches tall, wearing 125 pounds of armor. Standing glaring over the Earth looking to whom he make seek and destroy. “Bring it on”

No Hebrew volunteers could be found to fight him, until today, until David!

- Nobody can face your giants better than you can, God has predestined you to fight and win certain battles, Do not be scared.

Here is David, Jesse’s boy, normally tending sheep, but today he has some other business to tend too. He was supposed to be delivering bread and cheese to his brothers on the battle field, but then he hears Goliath defying God, David was not going to put up with that!

- 1st sign that you are dealing with a giant, it will go against the will of God!

- Then there stands Goliath: Toothpick vs. the tornado; the mini-bike vs. the eighteen wheeler; the poodle vs. the rottweiler. What odds do you give David?

- That is the way it looks when we fight out giants in life, the odds look slim

That is a real interesting question, because we sometimes give David better odds against Goliath, than we do against our own Giants. We say stuff like…..

- At least our Goliath (giant) does not carry a sword or shield

- But he does carry stuff like unemployment,

abandonment, sexual abuse, depression,

loneliness, defeated heart and bad relationships

- Your Giant does not parade up and down the hills of Elah

- But he prances through your office, or your

bedroom or your classroom

- He brings bills you cannot pay, grades you cannot make and people you cannot please

- Whisky you cannot resist, pornography you

cannot refuse and career you cannot

escape

- He brings you a past you cannot shake and a future you cannot face

Does anybody know the roar of Goliath? Can anybody say I got some giants?

David faced a giant that made challenges morning and night. For forty days, twice a day morning and evening the Philistine giant strutted in front of the Israelite army (17:16) Our Giants do us the same way.

- Things that bother us pop on our mind first thing in the morning and the last thing you think about before you go to bed. Your Goliath dominates your day and infiltrates your nights!

- Don’t your giants do you like that? You be like man, that gas bill due today, how am I going to pay it? Then before you go to bed you be like Lord, you know I got that gas bill.

When the soldiers saw Goliath they mumbled. Can’t you hear them now, “Dang not him again, if they did not have them we would whoop them!” This was a long tradition. Their dad fought his dad, their granddads fought his granddads; the saga never ends.

So it is with us, we have groaned similar words:

- My momma was a workaholic now I am becoming a workaholic

- My aunt and uncle got a divorce, now I am headed to divorce court

- My grandmother had a bunch of “friends” now look at my daughter; she has a lot of friends

Goliath is the long standing bully of our valley. He waits on you morning, noon, and night. He stalked your ancestors and now he stalks you. He blocks the sun and leaves you standing in a shadow of doubt.

- When Saul and his troops heard of the Philistines challenge, they were terrified and lost all hope, they lost their faith in other words. (17:11)

As we face our giants, like David faced Goliath; we know our giants, we recognize their walk and talk, but the question is this: Do you see anything else? Is that all you hear?