David

We are uniquely made to live abundantly.  The question is, are we being ourselves, living the way we were are made to live in our pursuit of life?  Or are we trying to be someone else, playing according to how others have defined the game of life?

The story of David and Goliath is known universally (in the Western world, at least) as one of the most legendary underdog victory stories.  The story is applied to battles, politics, sports, medicine: any instance when incredible odds are overcome, the David and Goliath reference is applied.  Hearing the story inspires us to become more brave.  After all, wasn’t David’s victory secured because of his faith-based bravery?  Wasn’t it God who really won the battle for David, since the likelihood of victory was so remote?

Yes and yes.  And…  No and no.

Some say that this account is mostly legend – a tall tale that is more interested in promoting David than historical fact.  A pretty interesting case can be made for its historical merit, however.  The scene (1 Samuel 17) depicts two militaries in a stand off, each camped out above opposite sides of a valley.   As a means of limiting collateral damage, Israel’s foe offered an alternative: one warrior from each side fights to the death.  Winner takes all.  So, Goliath – an enormous man – was presented as the champion to beat from the Philistines. He stood in the valley, taunting the Israelites to engage, using all the tricks in the book: double dog daring, calling Israelites emasculating names, and even insulting Israel’s God.  Israel’s response?  Fearful silence.  Nobody wanted to engage Goliath in hand to hand combat – it was suicide.  That’s what everybody assumed.

Malcom Gladwell notes in his recent book, David and Goliath: “What many medical experts now believe, in fact, is that Goliath had a serious medical condition.  He looks and sounds like someone suffering from what is called acromegaly – a disease caused by a benign tumor of the pituitary gland.  The tumor causes an overproduction of human growth hormone, which would explain Goliath’s extraordinary size.  (The tallest person in history, Robert Wadlow, suffered from acromegaly.  At his death, he was eight foot eleven inches, and apparently still growing.  And furthermore, one of the common side effects of acromegaly is vision problems.”  Goliath’s size certainly fits, but so do other details in the story.  He had an attendant carrying a shield.  He referred to David as “sticks” and not “stick”.  Both of these details may suggest that Goliath had a vision problem.  He was known for hand-to-hand combat, but he couldn’t see the broad side of a barn.

What made David think that he could handle Goliath?  It may have had something to do with David’s size, which was probably average at best.  David had courage, for sure.  But what won the battle for him was perspective.  David knew he didn’t have a chance beating Goliath in a cage fight, which he probably never considered as an option in the first place.  David, unlike Israel’s king and the whole of the military, knew that the way he would experience victory was not by trying to be Goliath, but rather in being fully David.  Goliath drew up terms that favored his strengths.  David played the game according to his strengths: an air assault.  He shed Saul’s suit of armor, gathered stones, grabbed his sling, and ran toward Goliath.  He knew he was a good shot, and Goliath’s head was a nice big target.  Goliath’s strength was no match for a marksman.  David, like many young men of his day, knew who to use a sling.  They could take out birds in flight, kill predatory animals at a distance, and likely competed with each other like people do today with their guns.

Gladwell sought insight from Eitan Hirsch, a ballistics expert with the Israeli Defense Forces, who recently did a series of calculations showing that a typical-size stone hurled by an expert slinger at a distance of thirty-five meters would have hit Goliath’s head with a velocity of thirty-four meters per second – more than enough to penetrate his skull and render him unconscious or dead.  In terms of stopping power, that is equivalent to a fair-size modern handgun.  “We find,” Hirsch writes, “that David could have slung and hit Goliath in little more than one second – a time so brief that Goliath would not have been able to protect himself and during which he would be stationary for all practical purposes.”

David was brave, for sure.  But the reason he won the battle that day was because he lived up to who he was instead of trying to be someone he wasn’t.  He capitalized on his strengths instead of being forced to play to the strengths of his competition.  Strategy born from knowing who he was and what he could do won the battle that day.

Goliaths abound in our world.  Individuals, communities, political parties, marketing machines, schools, churches, teams, etc., all demanding to be dealt with according to a certain set of requirements and expectations.  Many of these expectations favor a select few for success, and the rest to varying levels of failure.  In order to be of value, you have to look the part, act the part, abide by the rules of engagement, etc.  If you lose, you’re a loser.  But David didn’t approach Goliath like that.  Jesus didn’t live that way, either, and called for his followers to abandon such destructive, faithless pursuits.

Jesus’ day was filled with Goliaths, just like ours.  The Roman oppressors demanded compliance with their laws.  The religious leaders within Judaism feared losing favor and power with Rome, and protected their position by demanding unrealistic allegiance to their interpretation of Jewish law.  This generally resulted in common people feeling like losers.  They just couldn’t win.  And since these were representatives of God giving direction, they assumed that God thought they were losers, too.

Jesus turned all of that on it’s head, however.  Constantly.  Repeatedly.  He affirmed people for being people, and encouraged taking an entirely different approach to life that was rooted in the confidence that God viewed them as inherently good and worthy.  He encouraged people not to play by the rules of this world that hinder life at its best.  So he told people to forgive others, to turn the other cheek, to be generous, to not be judging, to serve instead of seeking to be served, to sacrifice for the good of others instead of selfishly hoarding.  Jesus’ presence, teaching, prayers, ministry – everything about him – was love communicating value to those who would hear it.  Not performance-based value, or worth determined by anything less than God’s word at creation: you are very good.

Stuff to think about…

1. What measures of success have been held before you throughout your life?  How have they impacted you?
2. When have you discovered that you were fighting a Goliath on Goliath’s terms?  How did you respond?
3. How do you balance the tension of living in the midst of all of culture’s pressures and living in the way of Jesus?  What keeps you focused?
4. Are there any areas of your life right now that need to be recalibrated toward Jesus’ way of thinking and being?  What might that look like?
5. In light of this, what do you wish you could tell your younger self, assuming you could use a time machine to do such a thing?  Who in your sphere today needs to hear what you would tell your younger self, since time machines are only in the beta stage? 

This week’s corporate prayer:

Creator God, you made us all in your image, saying: “This is good.”  We confess we forget this, labeling ourselves and each other as: those who fail, those who succeed; those who lose, those who win; those who are moral, those who are not; those who deserve justice, those who deserve judgment.  But even still, You made us all in your image, saying: “This is good.” Help us to live as you have created us to be, not as others see us.  Because it is you, the mysterious maker of the universe, who says to us: “I made you, and you are good!” – Terra Pennington