My attention has recently been drawn to David and his confrontation of Goliath. We know this story, some of us have heard this story since we were small and have grown up with David being a hero to us. We’ve loved this image of a shepherd boy defeating a skilled, warrior giant! And so we should!
There are elements of this story that I sometimes feel get overlooked, that we could really apply to our own lives. Firstly, the fact that David was a weak, probably teen or pre-teen, on cheese delivery duty. He wasn’t intending to go and fight this giant on this particular errand. He was being a dutiful son, and delivering lunch to his brothers! The fact that he saw the opportunity to fight, shows two things. The extent of the fear in the camp of the soldiers, and the extent of the courage that David showed.
We may look at ourselves and see a small, weak, pre teen of a spiritual warrior. Certainly, I have fallen prey to these thoughts. We think we are too small to take on the giants that we see, we think we don’t have the tools or experience to take them down. So we sit at the back of the camp and, quake in fear and hope the giant doesn’t notice us and passes us by. We chose NOT to engage.
What about those five pebbles? To me, they speak of our gifts. When they are left to themselves, they are just rough, colorless, stones, in a collection of many many stones. They’re not ‘anything special’. But when these gifts are dusted with the fingerprints of the One who put them there, suddenly these pebbles become something unique, something powerful, something that can be used in a way that no one would have thought of.
What if we chose to engage with the giants, and stop viewing ourselves as too small? What if we decided to use the ‘pebbles’ that God has deposited in us? What if we let Him direct those pebbles as we pick them up with the courage that He puts in us? Who knows what giants we will slay!
This article originally appeared on Simcha Natan’s blog, February 15, 2018, and reposted with permission.