Interesting. I just googled giant.  I was a little curious about what that search might bring.  I saw pictures of the Jolly Green Giant, Andre the Giant, and giant animals of all sorts.  Giants.  We all have them. Those things that loom over us.  We live in their shadows.  Like David's very own Goliath, they taunt us and tease us, seeking to defeat us.  Like I talked about on Friday's post.  

Oh, this familiar story is proving to have depths of unexplored territory, with all sorts of brand new insight.  One question has been rolling around my head since Friday.  I can't shake it.  It's not something I had ever seen in this story until I read 1 Samuel 17 again last week.

David looked across to the same giant that his brothers saw.  One and the same Goliath that caused the Israeli army to shake in their boots and run away.  After 40 days of twice daily taunting, the fear Goliath evoked had yet to lessen. 1 Samuel 17:24 says every last member of the Israeli army fled from Goliath in great fear.

But not David.  Nope.  The little shepherd boy sent as a courier saw this Goliath.  All nine feet of him.  The same image that everyone else looked upon.  But, instead of fear, he felt something else.  Curious.  And a seemingly inexplicable courage. Yep.  His response was completely different. 

David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?" 1 Samuel 17:26

David looked upon that giant of a man and he saw a disgrace.  He saw a man defiant of the Living God.  Where everyone else saw an opponent who could not be defeated, David saw someone who couldn't win.  Someone who dared to stand against the Lord.  What made the difference for David?  Because the contrast could not be more striking.  

The difference was all in the perspective.  You see, the difference was in the giant that David saw.  When David looked at that mammoth Philistine man, he saw a very different giant. 

What David saw in this situation was a God who was so big and so real to David that He was the Living God, without a doubt.  When David looked at this enemy, what he saw was someone doomed to fail.  Doomed because he dared to set himself up against the Victorious God Almighty.  Doomed because no one can stand against David's God and win.  David's perspective was this.  "How dare he?  Doesn't Goliath realize he is messing with THE Living God who cannot be defeated?"

David saw a giant alright.  But it was not the Philistine who screamed and hooted and hollered.  Nope.  David's giant was the big God that he knew.  Intimately.  Completely.  As a matter of fact. No questions asked.

Talk about courage.  Courage to see the giant of a Mighty God who dwarfs everything else.  Every other circumstance.  Every other opponent.  Every other enemy.  Courage to train his eyes from the earthly giant to a Heavenly One who was bigger and badder and undefeated--now and forevermore. 

WHERE does that courage come from?  HOW do we get a piece of that action?  To be able to see the things that we face in the shadow of our Giant God rather than just the things that leave us standing in their shadows? 

Yeah, you think.  I'm no David.  I mean, I'm no anointed "up and coming" king.  

Listen.  David's life was no bed of roses.  We know one thing for sure.  David did NOT get that courage and confidence from his family.  Not. at. all.  Remember--Daddy sent David off to take food to his older beloved brothers who were fighting in the army.  He was to come back with a reassuring word to put Dad to rest. 

It would seem from 1 Samuel that when Daddy looked at David all he saw was the youngest who was nothing more than a shepherd boy. And the brothers?  Verse 28 tells us clearly about the grief that his brothers gave David.  They were angry when they saw him, calling him wicked and conceited.  And basically worthless.  

If you think you can't possibly have a giant faith or believe in a Big God because no one ever believed in you, then you are in good company. 

You ever hear the deafening sound of man's rejection and it makes you want to reply like David, "NOW, what have I done?" (verse 29).  How can you ever stand with courage?  No one has ever encouraged you.  You can't stand with boldness against the opposition.  You are a nothing. 

That's pretty much what David had been told.  Over and over again.

See there.  We have no excuses.  

So no one taught David how to be so confident.  David was not emboldened by the cheers of a dad or brothers who spurred him on.  
David's courage to see a Giant God instead of a giant enemy surely came only from the Lord himself.  It came from who David knew God to be.  And in who God told David that he was.  David enjoyed fellowship with God.  An intimacy.  He walked with him through countless hours tending the sheep.  I imagine him out in the fields, singing his songs as he glanced at the stars.  Praying, perhaps aloud, and feeling God's presence.  David did not walk in a confidence given to him by men.  No, David walked in a confidence given to him by God himself.  The secret?  Time together.  No magic word.  No magic potion. 

Do you know who God says YOU are?  YOU, my bloggy friend, are as equipped as David.