David and Goliath

Sunday our story was about David and Goliath. Coming to this story as an adult was a different experience for me. As I stated in my sermon, the gore, the beheading was hard to read. We talked about how this story could possibly be relevant for us today and the feedback I have gotten since Sunday is interesting and thoughtful. I wanted to share some of our member reflections.

Sometimes we are the ones feeding the “giant” or “giants” in our life. When we place high expectations of perfection on ourselves often we feed the giant. And when we are perfectionists with ourselves, it often translates into expecting perfectionism from others. We place the bar so high that those around us can never reach it. It is a set up for us and for them.

How about when we feed the “giant” by negative self-talk. We repeat to ourselves the litany of mistakes or failures and it becomes cyclical. The more we bad-mouth ourselves, the harder it is try or care or believe in ourselves and we give over all power to the “giant”. “Of course I can’t win” we say to ourselves and we are done before we even try. Stop the feeding of the giant with negative self-talk. Forgiveness is found in our living, loving God and we are offered Grace each day to begin again. Every morning is a new morning to offer our lives to God.

I was reminded by one member that “giants” come in all sizes. That made me laugh. It is true. Giants, those things that trip up us or make us stop trusting ourselves and God, those things that tempt us, those things come in big packages yes, but often in little packages as well. They are so troubling, or so tempting or so painful that their size takes on enormous proportion. The problem or issue become bigger and bigger, like procrastination. May start really small, but by the time we get help to deal with it, it has grown beyond our wildest imaginations.

Remember David, had to shuck all the conventional armor, go with the sling shot which had worked for him the past and concentrate on having a good aim. He mentioned that he did all of this in the service of, and in the strength of, the living God. We too are promised help and strength and love by our Living God and perhaps we need to sometimes shuck all the “conventional armor”; unsolicited advice, negative self-talk, negative feedback, the nay-saying crowd, and just go forward with our best gifts, trusting God and trusting ourselves. There is so much hope in this story. I hope it feeds you some more this week and that is gives you strength while you are out there on the mission field of our world, slaying the giants.

If you feel led to read ahead, this coming Sunday we will be reflecting on the story of Abigail and David in I Samuel 25, great story of a courageous woman.