What's In Your Hands? God's Unexpected AnswerSample

Facing giants

When the giant Goliath taunts the Israelites, they are “dismayed and terrified,” fleeing in great fear whenever they see him. And when David presents himself as an opponent to the Philistine, Saul just sees a young boy. 

But David confidently affirms how God has prepared him for this task—how his experience protecting his sheep has made him a warrior. When Saul tries to give him unfamiliar armor, David elects to use a sling and stones instead. 

In fact, the writer of 1 Samuel makes a point of spelling out the tools that were in David’s hand—and which ones were not—when the giant’s body hit the ground. “So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him” (1 Samuel 17:50).

In David, we see an example of what it means to live confidently, knowing our all-powerful Father has equipped us to win great battles, even against dramatic odds. David knows God has prepared him for this task, and he trusts the tools he’s been given. In response to Goliath’s taunting, he testifies to the source of his power, replying, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty” (1 Samuel 17:45).

David didn’t long for better combat training; he knew that his daily, unglamorous tasks had prepared him for this moment. He didn’t covet Saul’s more sophisticated weaponry; he chose to use the tools he had already mastered. 

Our everyday moments are the training ground for the “big moments” in our lives. For David and for many of us, it’s easy to get lost in the humdrum tasks of our jobs and our lives—responding to emails, folding the laundry, driving to work. But it’s through those moments that God forms and prepares us. As Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren writes in Liturgy of the Ordinary, “The new life into which we are baptized is lived out in days, hours, and minutes. God is forming us into a new people. And the place of that formation is in the small moments of today.”

Reflection: What giants are you or your community facing right now that seem too big to conquer? How have your previous experiences equipped you to overcome the challenges before you?