Some people do their best work under stress — I am not one of those people. I work ahead. I need an example to copy. I need the right tools for the job. Then I need space to do the job right.
I thrive when I have time to prepare, and right now, I just don’t have it. There is no time. No getting ahead. No training manual. No preparation for a modern-day pandemic.
Yesterday, I studied a well-worn story that blessed in me a mighty new way (God’s word is good like that!).
In 1 Samuel, a menacing giant made an entire nation tremble with fear. Shortly before Israel’s deliverer carried that famous slingshot into battle, he carried something quite different: bread and cheese.
Yep, the king David — the one who would slaughter tens of thousands — got his start carrying harps, sheep, bread and cheese.
While his oldest brothers stood on the battlefield gaping at Goliath, David was running back and forth tending sheep for his family and harp-playing for king Saul. Then David’s father sent him on a bread-and-cheese delivery to the soldiers and the commanders (2 Sam. 17:17-18). It’s honestly hard for me to imagine mighty King David carrying a charcuterie board to the battlefield.
Obedient to the task, David carries his delivery, but when he arrives, he is stunned to see Israel’s warriors shaking-scared on the sidelines. David asks king Saul to fight the giant, but Saul answers him: “You are not able to go….for you are but a youth, and [Goliath] has been a man of war from his youth.”
This giant is a well-trained warrior. You are a harp-player, a shepherd, and a food-delivery boy.
Right now, watching the news, seeing empty grocery-store shelves, jumping at every cough, the temptation to gape at the giant before me is strong. I don’t know how to help my friends experiencing great financial loss. I don’t feel prepared to live in quarantine for the next several months. I have zero training for this. I am a stay-at-home mom and pastor’s wife with no medical knowledge. I feel like I’d be the first to go in a zombie apocalypse. Then I look at the eager young Giant-slayer, with his little flock of sheep and his fingers calloused not from battle, but from harp-playing.
Could it be that we’ve been specifically and purposefully trained by God our whole lives for such a time as this? Could it be that all our shepherding, and all our harp-playing, and all our food-delivering have made us into well-trained women to fight the battle before us? What have you endured with the Lord up till now? What lions have you fought while tending sheep? How has Christ provided for you and trained you in the past?
My fellow sisters, this just might be our giant-slaying hour. You might not have official battlefield armor (AKA Lysol). But you have the armor of God. You might not have trained for a pandemic, but you’ve trained on your knees in prayer and in the word.
Who you are, where you come from, what you’ve endured could be the exact training you need for what you’re about to walk through in the next few weeks including:
Teaching your children at home
Caring for sick family members
Helping your children worship outside of church
Enduring this sickness yourself
Tending to those tiny, thankless tasks hour after hour with no end in sight
Facing grief with hope only Jesus Christ himself can provide.
All of the above + working your job from home
If you have been walking with Jesus, you have the training that matters. He has been preparing you for these days, and he goes with you.
When Saul saw that David was determined to fight Goliath, he weighed him down with armor: a helmet, a coat of mail, and a sword. David shook it all off, saying “I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.”
He refused to go into battle with weapons he had not trained with.
Instead he chose his shepherd’s gear: a simple staff, pouch, sling, and stones — the weapons he’d tested.
Go into battle with the weapons you’ve tested countless times: Prayer. The Armor of God. Humble Servanthood. The Word of God. A Gentle and Quiet Spirit. The Cross. Obedience. Joy. They will not fail you.
And go in the Lord Jesus Christ. Know that he who trained you to face the days ahead has indeed gone in front of you in battle.
And the giant does fall.