“Then David said to the Philistine, ‘You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts.’” 1 Samuel 17:45 NKJV
“Faith does not pretend your giant is small. Faith sees that God is bigger than your giant.” — Dr. Daniel LeBlanc
What Do You See?
Today I want you to step onto the battlefield with David. Ask the Holy Spirit to allow this story to paint a God Imagination within your heart and change the way you see the giants standing before you.
You are standing among the army of Israel when Goliath walks into the valley. He is enormous, heavily armed, and intimidating, and every morning and evening for forty days the same voice has filled the valley with threats. The longer your brothers in Israel listens to him, the bigger he becomes in their imagination.
Then you arrive and hear the same words everyone else has been hearing. You see the same giant, but something is different because suddenly you do not see Goliath through the eyes of fear. You see him through the memory of God’s faithfulness and the covenant you have with God.
The soldiers see Goliath and imagine defeat, but you see Goliath and imagine victory. The giant is the same size before all, but the picture within you is completely different from the picture within everyone else.
In your imagination you put yourself in David’s place as you walk toward the battlefield. Goliath looks at you with contempt and begins speaking against you, but you refuse to allow his words to paint the picture within your heart.
You remember the lion and the bear, and you remember how God delivered you before. Yesterday’s faithfulness becomes fuel for today’s faith because you know the God who helped you then is still with you now.
Goliath has a sword, a spear, and a shield, while you are standing there with a sling and five stones. Naturally, the picture looks ridiculous, but faith sees something the natural eye cannot see because this battle does not belong to the strongest man on the field.
You look directly at the giant and declare that you are coming against him in the name of the Lord. Before the stone ever leaves your sling, victory has already become the picture within your heart.
Now you begin running toward the giant. You are not running because Goliath has become smaller, but because God has become greater within your vision.
The stone leaves your sling and strikes Goliath in the forehead, and the giant who terrified an entire army falls to the ground. What everyone else believed was impossible suddenly lies defeated in front of you.
This is the power of a God Imagination. Fear looks at the giant and asks, “What if I lose?” Faith looks at God and asks, “What can stand against me if God is with me?”
You may have a giant standing before you today. Pretending it does not exist is not faith. Faith acknowledges what is standing before you while refusing to allow it to become greater within you than the God who stands with you. Your God is bigger than any giant you face.
Be careful how long you listen to your giant because whatever you continually hear can begin painting pictures within your imagination. Fear rehearses the size of the giant, but faith remembers the faithfulness of God.
The question is not simply, “How big is your giant?” The greater question is, “How big is God in the picture you are carrying within you?” When God becomes greater within your vision, you can begin moving toward things you once ran away from.
Prayer
Father, teach me to see every giant through the reality of who You are. When fear tries to magnify what stands against me, remind me of Your faithfulness and allow Your promises to become greater within me than my circumstances.
Give me courage to move forward when You tell me to move. Let my heart become so filled with the picture of Your greatness that fear no longer determines how I respond. Amen.
Today’s God Imagination
Close your eyes and identify one giant that has been intimidating you. See yourself standing before it, but this time do not focus only on the size of what is against you.
Remember what God has already brought you through and allow His faithfulness to become the dominant picture within you. Then see yourself moving forward in faith, knowing that the God who has been faithful before will be faithful again.
