Walking With Christ

(Part 2 of 12)

1 Samuel 17:34-35 (34)But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, (35)I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him.(ESV)

Everybody remembers Goliath.

A giant stands in a valley and challenges the armies of Israel. For forty days, he comes forward. Morning and evening. The soldiers hear him. Saul hears him. Israel hears him. And everybody is afraid.

Then a young man named David arrives. He hears Goliath. He asks a few questions. He gets brought before Saul. He refuses Saul’s armor. He picks up five smooth stones. He walks into the valley.

One stone. One sling. One giant falls.

That’s the story.

Except it isn’t.

That’s where the fire started.

David Wasn’t Supposed to Be There

David wasn’t a soldier arriving for battle. His brothers were. David was home taking care of sheep. His father, Jesse, sent him to the battlefield with food.

1 Samuel 17:17 And Jesse said to David his son, “Take for your brothers an ephah of this parched grain, and these ten loaves, and carry them quickly to the camp to your brothers.(ESV)

Think about how ordinary that assignment was. Take your brothers some food. Check on them. Come back.

David woke up that morning as a shepherd running an errand for his father. He had no idea that people would still be talking about that day thousands of years later.

He wasn’t marching toward destiny. He was delivering lunch. That’s important because we tend to recognize significant moments only after they become significant.

David couldn’t. When Jesse handed him the food, there was no dramatic music. Nobody announced that this was the beginning of one of the most famous confrontations in Scripture.

It was just something his father asked him to do. But the story had already begun. Actually, it had begun long before that morning.

Saul Saw a Boy

When David finally stands before Saul and offers to fight Goliath, Saul looks at him and sees the obvious problem.

1 Samuel 17:33 And Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from his youth.”(ESV)

Saul’s reasoning makes sense. Look at the two men.

Goliath is a warrior. David isn’t.

Goliath has armor. David doesn’t.

Goliath has weapons. David’s been watching sheep.

Goliath has spent his life preparing for war. David hasn’t.

At least that’s what it looks like.

Saul is judging David by the part of David’s story Saul can see.

David knows there’s more. So he tells Saul about the part nobody saw.

There Was a Lion

David had been keeping his father’s sheep. At some point, a lion came. It took a lamb. David went after it. Stop there.

That’s already remarkable. A predator took one sheep from the flock. David could have let it go. There were other sheep. He could’ve gone home and explained what happened. “Dad, a lion got one.”

That’s a pretty reasonable explanation.

Instead, David chased it.

Then there was a bear. David went after that too.

No crowd. No army. No king watching from a distance. No songs would be written about it.

Just a shepherd, a predator, and a sheep that belonged to his father.

David fought when nobody was watching. Later, when everybody was watching, he already knew something about himself that they didn’t.

Goliath Wasn’t David’s First Giant

The lion wasn’t Goliath. The bear wasn’t Goliath.

We shouldn’t pretend they were the same challenge.  They weren’t.

But David saw a connection.

Listen to his conclusion:

1 Samuel 17:36 Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.”(ESV)

David’s looking backward. The shepherd’s field suddenly makes sense in the valley. Something he experienced when nobody was watching had prepared him for something nobody expected. And David doesn’t ultimately credit himself.

He continues:

1 Samuel 17:37 And David said, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you!”(ESV)

That’s the connection. David isn’t saying: “I’ve killed predators before. I’m pretty good at this.”

He’s saying: I’ve seen God deliver me before.

Before Goliath, there was a lion. Before Goliath, there was a bear. Before the battlefield, there was a field. Before the public victory, there was private faithfulness.

And before David needed to trust God in front of an army, he’d already learned something about trusting God where almost nobody could see him.

The Sling Came From Somewhere Too

Then David refuses Saul’s armor. Not because armor is sinful. Not because faith means refusing protection.

David tells Saul exactly why:

1 Samuel 17:39 and David strapped his sword over his armor. And he tried in vain to go, for he had not tested them. Then David said to Saul, “I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.” So David put them off.(ESV)

So David takes what he knows. His staff. His sling. Five smooth stones.

We tend to begin paying attention to the sling when David puts a stone in it. But David didn’t learn to use a sling while Goliath waited patiently across the valley.

That skill came from somewhere.

There were countless ordinary days before this one. Days of watching sheep. Days of boredom. Days when nothing attacked. Days when there was no giant. Days when David was simply doing the job in front of him.

Somewhere in those days, he became capable with the weapon he would eventually carry into the valley. The skill looked ordinary until the moment came when it wasn’t.

We Want the Battlefield

This is where the story gets uncomfortable. We like Goliath moments. Not necessarily the danger.

We like the significance. We want to know that what we’re doing matters. We want the moment when everything we’ve learned suddenly makes sense. We want to see the giant fall.

What we don’t necessarily want are years of sheep. Nobody celebrates another successful Tuesday with the flock. Nobody gathers around to watch David practice with a sling. Nobody writes songs because all the sheep made it home.

But that was David’s life before Goliath. And there was something else before Goliath that matters.

David had already been anointed. Samuel had come to Jesse’s house. One son after another passed before him. Then David was called in from the sheep.

1 Samuel 16:12 And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome. And the Lord said, “Arise, anoint him, for this is he.”(ESV)

David had been anointed to become king. Then what happened?

He went back to ordinary life. He still tended sheep.

Imagine that. God’s announced something enormous over David’s future, but David’s present still looks like sheep.

The promise didn’t immediately change the scenery.

Preparation Doesn’t Always Look Like Preparation

That’s one of the problems with preparation. We usually recognize it afterward.

David could look backward from Goliath and understand why the lion mattered. Why the bear mattered. Why the sling mattered. Why protecting sheep mattered. Why learning to trust God when nobody was watching mattered.

But while those things were happening? They probably just looked like life.

That’s where we have to be careful. We shouldn’t look at every difficult thing that happens and declare: “God sent this because He’s preparing me for my Goliath.”

We don’t know that.

Sometimes a lion is simply a lion. Sometimes suffering exists because we live in a broken world. Sometimes we’ll never understand why something happened.

David gives us something better than speculation.

He looked backward at what God had already brought him through and allowed that history to shape how he faced what stood in front of him.

He didn’t need to know why the lion came when the lion came. He needed to remember God’s faithfulness when Goliath came.

Your Field May Not Look Important

Most of life isn’t Goliath. Most of life is sheep.

Work. Children. Marriage. Bills. Church. Conversations. Mistakes. Learning. Trying again.

Showing up tomorrow. Doing something nobody notices particularly well. Keeping promises nobody would know if you broke. Choosing faithfulness when there isn’t an audience.

We don’t know which of those moments will matter later. We don’t know which skill we’ll need. We don’t know which lesson we’ll remember. We don’t know which experience will give us courage. We don’t know which ordinary assignment will put us exactly where we need to be.

David certainly didn’t know when Jesse said: “Take this food to your brothers.”

He just went. Then he heard a giant.

Before Goliath

When David stepped into that valley, Israel saw a shepherd facing a warrior.

They saw what David lacked. No armor. No sword. No military experience. No physical match for the man standing across from him.

What they couldn’t see was everything that had already happened.

They couldn’t see the lion. They couldn’t see the bear. They couldn’t see all those hours with the sling. They couldn’t see Samuel pouring oil over David’s head. They couldn’t see the countless ordinary days of protecting his father’s sheep.

They couldn’t see what God had already done.

They saw David’s story beginning when he walked toward Goliath. It didn’t.

The battlefield was just where everyone else finally noticed it. The story had begun in a field. With sheep. With predators. With ordinary responsibilities. With nobody watching.

Long before David knew there would ever be a Goliath, God was already there.