Courage Comes From God

From: jon Bloom, desiringgod.org

 

Three thousand years ago, in the Valley of Elah, a massive man named Goliath of Gath stepped out of the Philistine ranks to defy and taunt the army of Israel and its God. For forty days, he harangued the Israelite warriors, heaping shame on them, since none dared to accept his fight-to-the-death, winner-takes-all challenge. Every morning when he stepped forward, the men of God shrank back.

Then a teenage Hebrew shepherd boy named David showed up in the camp with some bread and cheese for his soldier big brothers and heard the giant pour out his scorn on the impotent host of his Lord. David was indignant. So he took his shepherd’s sling, grabbed a few stones, knocked Goliath on the block, and chopped off his head.

Many think David’s defeat of Goliath is a story of personal courage in the face of overwhelming odds. They see David as the archetypal underdog, an Old Testament Rocky Balboa, standing up to an arrogant, powerful blowhard. They see him as a self-confident, independent young man who was brave enough to fight for what was right and rely on his own strength and skills, rather than conform to conventional tactics.

The popular moral of the story is this: Get out there and face down your giant because the heroically courageous come out on top.

But that is not at all what this story is about. It’s true that David was courageous, and courage is an essential, glorious virtue. But when he faced Goliath, David’s courage was a derivative virtue. It was being empowered by something else.

Before looking at where David’s courage came from, we need to ask why Saul and his soldiers lacked it, at least at this moment. On the surface, the answer seems manifestly obvious. The Philistine champion was about nine-feet tall and incredibly strong (1 Samuel 17:4–7). He was a highly trained, experienced massacre machine who had sent many opponents to meet their Maker (1 Samuel 17:33). Physically, every man in the Hebrew camp was outclassed. Fighting Goliath looked like suicide, plain and simple.

But it is not so plain and simple. First of all, because fighting Goliath didn’t look like suicide to David, who was as physically outclassed as anyone else. But also, because these men believed in God and knew Israel’s history. They knew the stories, how God had overcome one giant adversary after another. Many of them had personally seen God do amazing things, such as Jonathan’s defeat of a Philistine garrison in 1 Samuel 14.

No, the men lacked courage to face Goliath because at this moment the men lacked faith. At this moment, for whatever reason, despite all the stories and past experiences, Goliath looked bigger than God. Each man believed that if he went out against this humungous human, he would be on his own and end up as bird food (1 Samuel 17:44).