There’s a lecture block every student in healthcare eventually meets that feels unbeatable. Mine was cardiology. I remember sitting in that lecture hall doing math in my head, how many hours until the exam, how far behind I already was, how everyone around me seemed to already understand something I couldn’t grasp. The material had a presence in the room. It felt larger than the professor teaching it.
Israel’s army had been staring at Goliath for forty days. Long enough that his size had become the only fact anyone could discuss.
David said to Saul, “Let no man’s heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.”… David said moreover, “Yahweh who delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go, and Yahweh shall be with you.”… Then said David to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin: but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of Armies, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.” (WEB)
Forty days of an army looking at one giant, and not one soldier mentioned God’s name. David walks in as an outsider, a boy sent to deliver bread, and the first thing he restores to the conversation is the name everyone forgot to say out loud. The problem was never that Goliath was too big. The problem was that fear had made him the entire story.
Your exam block is real. The hours are real. But somewhere in the forty days of staring at it, you may have stopped saying God’s name over it. Not because you stopped believing in Him. Because the giant got so loud you forgot he wasn’t the main character.
Reflect
What’s the “Goliath” you’ve been staring at until it became the entire conversation in your head?
Where has fear quietly pushed God to the background of a situation He’s still sovereign over?
What would it look like to say His name over this block today, out loud, the way David did?
Prayer
God of Armies, You were never absent from the forty days, even when no one mentioned Your name. I confess I’ve let this exam become larger in my mind than You are in reality. Show me where fear has crowded You out of a story that was always Yours to write. Remind me that the size of what I’m facing has never been the measure of Your presence. Today, let me speak Your name over what I’m afraid of before I speak anything else. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Before You Go What’s the block or course that’s been your Goliath this semester? Say it in the comments, let’s pray over it together.
Someone in your life is staring at their own giant right now. Send them this.