by Doug Bing, Washington Conference president
Most Christians are very versed in the story of David and Goliath. It is a great story that shows how God leads in facing a seemingly insurmountable obstacle and overcoming it. I love the story and there are many things to learn from the story.
David faces the giant with non-traditional weapons and in a non-traditional way, and most importantly, he faces the giant with the clear knowledge of being led by God and that he was acting in God’s name.
But what I like is the rest of the story. In I Chronicles 20:4-8, it tells the story of a bunch of giants that all fell either by the hand of David or by the hands of David’s soldiers. It says that all the giants that were born of the giant of Gath were killed. David and his soldiers were not satisfied with the destruction of just one of the giants that were in their way. He stayed with it until all the giants were destroyed that were out to destroy God’s people.
As important as the story of David and Goliath, the rest of the story is also important in that all the giants that had stood in opposition to God’s people were all destroyed. It wasn’t just a single giant that was destroyed, it was all of them.
Each of us have things in our lives that seem like giants. Each of us have things that seem like insurmountable things that stand in our way. In this story, though, we learn that God doesn’t just want one of the giants to be destroyed and defeated. He wants to see us have victory over all the giants in our lives and to see all of them defeated.
The giants could be things like relationships that are not going well, jobs that are a major challenge, neighbors that get on our last nerve, feelings of failure, the pain of major loss in our lives, major illnesses in our lives. These are all giants in our lives that can seemingly crush us.
God, however, wants to crush the giants. Not just one of them. All of them.