How is your journey with Jesus going? Are you struggling? Do you feel as if God is distant? If this is you at the moment, well, it’s a part of the Christian life. Experiences such as this can be transformed by God, if we take time out with God in prayer and step out with God in faith. So be encouraged. The story of David and Goliath, I believe, is very helpful when we are down.

Here is a ten foot battle hardened giant, Goliath, against David, a teen-age boy with a slingshot and five smooth stones! It has the ingredients of a box office hit: like Bruce Willis against the evil forces of the latest corporate, government and CIA conspiracy. Bruce Willis is single-handedly defending the rights and liberties of WASP small-town isolationist Americans. In the story of David and Goliath, we all barrack for the underdog, David. Go David! And then to give it the perfect Hollywood ending, David wins the battle. But David himself didn’t win, God did.

The God inspired event of David and Goliath reminds us that we will only win the important spiritual, emotional, psychological and physical battles of life when we recognise that our own resources are limited and that only God can equip us and protect us. We may not win the argument, beat the disease, or come out of an emotionally, physically, and spiritually draining situation unscathed. However, if we live, believing that God is in the situation, walking with us, holding us, moulding us and dying in our place – then the moral at the end of the story is the right one, because God did not allow evil to win the day at Calvary.

The healing and hope of the Gospel for our lives can never be destroyed; not even by the Goliaths of our fears, doubts, low self-esteem, hang-ups, hypocrisies, betrayals, lies, illnesses, and any of the other demons of being human. Not all the Goliaths may come tumbling down. Not all the storms will be calmed. Not all the moments of despair, fear, anguish and restlessness will be appeased. But if we put our hope and trust in the Yahweh, who made the heavens and the earth, and make Christ the centre of our lives, then we will receive healing as well as the peace that passes all understanding. It’s a promise (from God!). The celebrated Australian Christian novelist, Tim Winton says: the real miracle always for us is that things are not alot worse.

Blessings in Jesus’ name,

KIM THODAY HEWETT COMMUNITY CHURCH OF CHRIST, SOUTH AUSTRALIA