What Is Your Giant?

This past Sunday, the Pastor preached on Purpose in Passion in our current series which is called No Perfect People Allowed. The mission of our church is to help everyone we can find their place in God's plan. As Christians, we know that God created each of us in the image of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We also know He created us on purpose and for a purpose. Given that I'm a child of God, my obvious purpose is to live for God and to please God. But beyond that, and by looking in the Bible, we see that people from all social classes, genders, educational backgrounds and even various moral failures are used by God for His purposes. 

Back to this Sunday, Pastor Josh was preaching from 1 Samuel 17, on a very familiar Bible story of David and Goliath. David heard about the giant and ASKED who would fight him. As a teenager and shepherd, and the youngest of three brothers, David was doubted in his ability. But, Saul who had taken favor with David overheard David saying he would fight the giant and summoned him. He also doubted David, but David was confident in his calling and ability to fulfill it and convinced Saul. However, Saul still didn't really trust his ability and put his own tunic on David & gave him his sword to prepare him for the fight. David said, "no thanks," to Saul's equipment saying:

“I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. ⁴⁰ Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.

David goes on to explain to the Philistine giant Goliath that the Lord will deliver him into his hands. Call it holy smack talk if you will. And then he takes out a stone, puts it in his sling shot and with one shot, he kills the giant dead.

Pastor Josh went on to give his points of application, as it applies to us pursuing God's call on our life for purpose and try to do something great. One, there will be people to question your motives. Two, people will question your abilities. And three, people will try and shift your faith focus. All three happened to David. His own brothers questioned his motives and ability, Saul and Goliath questioned his ability, and Saul tried to shift his faith focus by trying to get David to do it Saul's way - with his tunic and sword. In verses 38-40, David knew he didn't need extra belp because he had faith in God while Saul didn't have the same faith.

I struggled a little bit with the premise that questioning motives and ability were bad. Come on, who wouldn't have questioned the THIRTEEN (give or take) year old boy who just watched sheep that wanted to fight a giant without a legitimate weapon? But that's also the message I take away from the story. Stop being skeptical and questioning of everything. Know that God is God and if something is initiated by Him and is part of His plan, it doesn't matter the circumstances, it will go His way. In reality, this should be a huge comfort and stress relieving idea. David gets it. And David conquers a giant and gains notoriety. Saul becomes jealous of David later and even tries to kill him. But David goes on to become a king, and in God's own words "a man after His own heart." We also know that David had some grave shortcomings as a human, but as our series title, No Perfect People Allowed suggests, God can use us at our worst. He just won't leave us there.

Pastor Josh left us with a question we should dare to ask. If money weren't an issue, failure not an option, and you could do anything and succeed, what would it be? That's the passion in question and with that passion, God can give you a purpose. Most of us probably haven't given it much thought because money is always an issue, failure always a fear and we don't know if we will succeed because we define success in the world's terms rather than God's terms which is just obedience to Him. Think about it.