Know Your Role

Every now and again I have to remind my children who has what role in this house. I tell them “Daddy and I are the parents. You are the child. We assume these roles with these tasks and you assume those roles and those tasks.” Then, sometime later, they began to mix up who is who and who can do what and again we review. Such is life.

Turns out, my children are not the only ones guilty of misunderstanding who is who in the story of life. I, too, have some issues. I realized this while reviewing the story of David and Goliath. It is found in 1 Samuel 17. David was a shepherd. Goliath was a 9-foot Philistine giant who mocked, intimidated, and paralyzed the Israelites with fear day and night through his loud taunts. He was challenging God’s people to stand up to him and prove that their God was more powerful than he was. King Saul and his men were too afraid to do so. But David came along and slew Goliath with a stone and a sling.

This account of how the Lord intercedes for His people is very encouraging. I have read it and heard it taught many times. But… it was not until recently that I realized I was identifying with the wrong character in the story.

All this time, I just knew I was David! I was going to face my giants with my sling and my rock and slay them. Right?

Not exactly.

God was like, “Christy, I am ‘David.’ You, dear, are ‘the Israelites.’”

Turns out, you and I are represented by the ones who were too afraid to stand up to Goliath. Yep, that’s us.

Jesus Christ is our giant killer. It is the Jesus in us that will slay our “Goliaths.”

What a relief! We do not need to grab a sling of self-sufficiency and a rock of “I’ve got this . . .” to slay all that taunts and suggests it is more powerful than our God. We need to walk out on faith and trust in Jesus who is capable of defeating any of the giants in our lives. Be it fear, depression, doubt, financial issues—if we know Him and step out on faith He will use us to achieve victory through the power of the Holy Spirit.

We are the Israelites in this story. Yes, they were trembling. More importantly, they were God’s chosen people. Above all, their trembling did not change that fact! That is good news for us. We may experience some trembling in the face of our giants, but we are some trembling chosen children of a God who still loves us and has promised us victory. We can tremble our way to Him as He, our David, does His work through us.