Strength To Stand
For forty days, Goliath towered over the army of Israel and issued the same challenge: Send someone to fight me. If he defeats me, we will serve you. If I defeat him, you will serve us.
And for forty days, Israel’s soldiers backed away.
These were trained warriors. They had weapons. They knew how to fight. But the threat before them had begun to overshadow what they knew, not only about themselves, but about God.
Then David arrived.
He heard the same threats. He saw the same giant. He knew Goliath was bigger and stronger than he was. But David saw something the others had forgotten.
Goliath might have been bigger than David, but he was not bigger than God.
And in a very real sense, David’s victory began right there.
Before David picked up a stone, before Goliath fell, David had settled something in his heart. He believed God. And because he believed God, he was willing to step onto the battlefield.
The giant had not fallen yet. But fear had already lost its power to make David retreat.
Before anyone could see the victory, David had already chosen to live from it.
Maybe that is important for us to remember, because we usually recognize victory only after something falls.
The diagnosis changes.
The relationship is restored.
The problem is solved.
The door finally opens.
We can point to something and see the victory.
But what about when the giant is still standing?
Some battles last for years. Illness does not go away. A relationship remains broken. An injustice prevails for a long time. A prayer we have prayed a hundred times seems to remain unanswered.
What then?
Maybe we have defined victory too narrowly.
There is something about the Christian life that teaches us to live between what God has already accomplished and what we are still waiting to see.
On the cross, Jesus said, “It is finished.”
Finished.
And yet we still live in a world where people suffer. Where bodies become sick. Where relationships break. Where injustice happens. Where people we love die.
We are still waiting for the day when everything Christ accomplished will be fully realized, when death itself will finally be no more.
But we do not wait to find out who wins.
That has already been settled.
Maybe some of the giants in our lives have to be understood from that same place.
We may still be waiting for something to change. We may still be praying. We may still be hurting. We may still be standing in front of something we desperately wish God would change.
But waiting for the outcome does not mean waiting for God to work. He is already at work.
We may have decided what victory should look like. The illness goes away. The relationship is restored. The injustice is corrected. The prayer is answered in the way we hoped.
But God may be accomplishing a victory we did not know to look for.
Sometimes victory looks like standing.
The illness is still there, but somehow hope is too.
The loss still hurts, but we have not closed our hearts to love.
The injustice has not been made right, but we keep doing what is right anyway.
We still do not know what tomorrow holds, but we get up and faithfully live the day God has given us today.
That is not a lesser victory.
Goliath carried a sword and a spear, but long before he used either one, he used fear. For forty days, he intimidated an entire army into believing there was nothing they could do.
Fear can do that to us too.
It whispers that we are too small. Too weak. Too tired. Too late. Too alone.
And sometimes it even whispers that God is not exactly who He says He is.
David refused to let what he saw determine what he believed.
He believed God.
Maybe that is where strength to stand begins.
Not in knowing how the battle will end. Not in convincing ourselves that everything will turn out the way we hope. Not even in believing that the giant will fall when or how we want it to.
It begins with settling our hearts on what is already true.
God is good.
He is present.
He is always at work, bringing about His good purposes, even when victory looks different from what we expected.
Because of Christ, we already know how the story ends.
So we can keep loving.
Keep serving.
Keep speaking truth.
Keep showing kindness.
Keep choosing hope.
Keep taking the next faithful step.
Sometimes we will see the giant fall.
Sometimes we may stand for a very long time.
But we are not standing there waiting to find out who wins.
“It is finished.”
We are standing because we already know.
The Lagniappe
Enjoy “Stand in Your Love,” performed by Josh Baldwin.
The Story Behind the Song
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