We cannot wait for the big battles of life to learn to fight. We need daily training. God will prepare us for battle in the day to day faithful small acts of doing life.
Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. “I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.”
1 Samuel 17:38, ESV
David is a character in scripture that is deeply familiar to most. Who hasn’t heard of the big giant Goliath and the small shepherd boy David rounding off in the field between the Philistines and the Israelites? Goliath came out and stood on the battle field day after day shouting out at the Israelites to send someone to fight against him. “Choose a man and have him come down to me,” he would bellow. And the whole camp was “dismayed and terrified.” Until David came. He wasn’t really there to fight. In fact, he was on an errand. His father needed him to take supplies to his brothers and find out news. David was the youngest and spent his day tending sheep.
He shows up and hears Goliath ranting at the camp and he is not dismayed. He is insulted. But, have you ever noticed who David is defending? “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” David is concerned for the glory of his God. He hears Goliath and his first thoughts are not for his safety, his comfort, or his family. He is thinking about his God. When Saul dismisses David as just a boy, David reminds him of what he has been doing. “Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them…The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of the Philistine.“
And David does. He takes a stone and he slings one straight into Goliath’s forehead. He kills him and cuts his head off. And this is the best part: This is exactly what David has been doing for years tending the sheep; slinging stones and stopping enemies. Saul originally tries to get David to wear a suit of armor. He thinks he is a boy and needs defenses like the rest of the camp. But, the armor wasn’t going to be effective. It was too big and David could barely move.
Stones and slings were what he was familiar with. He had trained with those stones, using them many times before. He had struck down other adversaries. Goliath wasn’t his first kill. And to be honest, he had a lot more death to come in his future. But, here in this moment facing what was his first “real” battle, David used what he knew and what he had been practicing. He didn’t wait to learn to sling a stone in the midst of battle.
Training
Have you considered what made David ready for battle? It was only what he had been already doing. He had been tending sheep and killing enemies. He had been in training all that time. Fighting little enemies in preparation for the bigger ones.
My battles are going to look a lot different than David’s. But, I cannot wait for the big battles to come to learn to fight. While my battles may look different than David’s, they will be in essence, the same. They will require I engage the enemy. They will be for the honor and glory of my King. And they will require that I draw on the resources that are already stored in my spiritual well. God is faithfully equipping me for battle and I am a part of that equipping.
God is faithfully equipping me for battle... Click To Tweet
I am in His word (the sword) and I am meeting with Him, learning to listen to His quiet voice. I am doing my life with God in the middle of it when there are no battles raging; when the water is calm or calmer. I can look at the days ahead and know that God is preparing me. He is not expecting me to get my act together. In fact, He is getting my act together. He is and will prepare me for the battle in the day to day faithful small acts of doing my life. He has begun a good work in me and He will be faithful to complete it. I can rest in that and I can rest in Him.
