Giants Among Us

by Tim Howard

A very interesting story about the Israelites is recorded in Numbers, chapter 13 of the Old Testament. They were on the verge of war and the Commander in Chief deployed 12 spies for reconnaissance to hopefully gather information for preparing a strategy.

On their return 10 of the 12 had a negative report, stressing their belief that the war was unwinnable. They gave this reason. “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are…they are giants and we look like grasshoppers in comparison.”

When I read this, I was reminded of the time when my family had the opportunity to see the Los Angeles Lakers play the Golden State Warriors in basketball. We were seated three rows behind the Lakers bench and I’ve got to tell you Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy and the others were gigantic. As exciting as that was for my family, a problem arose. We couldn’t see the game through the giants.

There are still giants among us! But I’m not speaking about people. I’m talking about challenges. Any time you face something beyond your ability to understand, control or change you are facing a giant.

Giants are those things you face in life that are bigger than you. They can be intimidating because of their size and they tend to threaten your security and sanity. If not dealt with they will skew your perspective and keep you from seeing clearly.

Many have heard the story about David and Goliath but if you haven’t, you can find the details in 1 Samuel, chapter 17. To learn how to win battles against giants you need to study winners and not whiners. David was a winner.

Here’s three things to learn about giants from David.

1. Just because giants are bigger than you, they aren’t necessarily better than you. Bigger is bigger not better. Solomon said: “The race is not always to the swift or the battle to the strong … but time and chance happen to them all.” We learned from Aesop’s Fables – just because the Hare is faster than the Tortoise doesn’t mean he automatically wins. Your battles may be asymmetric but not unwinnable.

2. Giants don’t go away if you ignore them. Goliath taunted the Israelites for 40 days until someone stepped up. You may have heard about the proverbial Pink Elephant in the room. No one wants to focus on it. No one wants to talk about it. No one wants to deal with it so we learn to live with it. We choose to embrace the mediocre rather than strive for the best. Maybe you should ask yourself this question:  What am I ignoring right now? What should I deal with but am unwilling to do so? What hurt am I simply trying to ignore? Maybe we ignore things because we’ve convinced ourselves they go away.  Not so!

 You know you are ignoring something when you keep postponing and procrastinate.  "One of these days... I'm going to go to the dentist." – You ignore that little pain "... I'm going to get that surgery"  "... I'm going to get some marriage counseling etc." We always postpone what is painful. Listen:

Postponing pain NEVER solves the pain. The fact is – procrastination turns minor problems into major ones. David was the only one who took the bull by the horns, so to speak.

3. Last of all, David won because his confidence was in God. Goliath was cocky and put his confidence in himself. Self-confidence is one thing but you need God-confidence to win battles against giants.