MERRY MONDAY BY PARRIS BAILEY
“Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD’S, and he will give you into our hands.”
1Sam. 17:45-47
I think giants come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. We face them all throughout our Christianity. Little ones, green ugly ones and then the big ones that really seem scary. (JABBA THE HUTT?) Thank God gives us “weapons for our warfare to the pulling down of strongholds”. One of my giants was getting over myself and all my failures. Then one day Jesus came and stepped on my boat and forced me out into the water. We can either perpetually live with our demons or confront them as David did. David spent years in the back country alone with God. He found the secret place of worship.
FB Meyer said, “Let us live alone with God. The weakest man who knows God is strong to do exploits. All the might of God awaits the disposal of our faith. As a child by touching a button may set in motions a mighty steamship, making glide like a swan into her native element, so a stripling who has learnt to reckon on God may bring the whole forces of Deity to bear on men and things on the world’s battlefield. This is the victory that overcomes the world, the flesh, and the devil-even our faith.”
He goes onto to say; “This is the unfailing secret. There is no short cut to the life of faith, which is the all-vital condition of a holy and victorious life. We must have periods of lonely meditation and fellowship with God. That our souls should have their mountains of fellowship, their valleys of quiet rest beneath the shadow of a great rock, their nights beneath the stars, when darkness has veiled the material and silence the stir of human life, and has opened the view of the infinite and eternal, is as indispensable as that our bodies should have food. Thus alone can the sense of God’s presence become the fixed possession of the soul, enabling it to say repeatedly with the psalmist, “Thou art near, O, God.”
David looked at the lion, the bear and this ugly giant the same. Go ahead and face that giant!