David and Goliath: Not an Underdog Story

Hey, folks. Wanda Thibodeaux here. I’m your host, and welcome to Faithful on the Clock, the podcast where all the kids jump in the pool to get your faith and work aligned. In today’s show, we’re taking the beloved story of David and Goliath and revealing how, actually, it’s not designed as an underdog story at all. Stick with me to learn how David’s battle parallels the story of Jesus.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that most of you know the story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17. But for those of you who are new to scripture and still learning, the Philistines had come into Judah and were making war against the Israelites. And the two armies were camped out ready to fight each other. And this old Israelite guy named Jesse, he had eight sons, and the three oldest of his kids had gone to fight in the war. But Jesse’s youngest son, David, he’d go back and forth from home to the Israelite camp and, you know, he’s checking on his brothers for his dad and bringing them food and stuff. But the Philistines had this champion warrior named Goliath. And Goliath was this huge guy. The Bible describes him as being 6 cubits tall, which in the imperial or American system is nine feet. And twice a day for over a month, Goliath comes out in the morning and evening and mocks the Israelite army. He challenges them to send their own champion to fight him, kind of like a one-on-one, winner-takes-all deal for the war. But all the guys in the Israelite army are so scared of Goliath nobody’ll fight him, even when King Saul is promising prizes like the right to marry his daughter. And so, along comes David with his usual snackies for his brothers. And he hears what Goliath is doing, and he gets mad. He’s like, “Why isn’t anybody facing this guy?” And eventually, David tells King Saul that he’ll go out against Goliath. And of course, Saul is like, “Dude, that’s a horrible idea. You’re just a kid.” But David insists that he can win because God has always protected him when he was watching his dad’s sheep and had to fight lions and bears. And David goes out to fight Goliath. He doesn’t even wear the armor King Saul offers to him because he’s not used to it and he knows it’ll throw him off. And so, they talk smack to each other, and David’s very clear that he’s gonna fight so that people know God is still with Israel. And David and Goliath charge each other. And David throws one stone with a slingshot. The stone knocks Goliath in the head, Goliath falls over, and David cuts off Goliath’s head with his own sword.

Now, I don’t think there is a pastor on the face of the Earth who hasn’t preached David and Goliath as an underdog story. And in a lot of ways it is. We don’t expect David to win. And the pastors will use David and Goliath to show how underdogs can have victory if they give their battles over to God. And they’ll point out how those battles can be anything hard in life, right? Like, maybe your addiction is your Goliath. Or maybe you’ve lost your job and you have no idea how you’re gonna provide for your family. Now, sometimes people will spin this a little bit and argue that Goliath was really the underdog all along because there was no way he’d ever stand up against God. But it’s almost alway portrayed as an invitation to hand God what’s too big for you to manage alone.

But I happened on this blog post from Peter Wotkowski, who’s the senior pastor of Amissville Baptist Church in Virginia. And he essentially argued in that post that, you know, David didn’t really have a personal issue with Goliath. Goliath wasn’t really his problem. But when David got to the army camp and saw what was going on, he saw that Israel needed a savior. Israel needed David to make Goliath his problem so that Israel wouldn’t be destroyed. And so, what Wotkowski really focuses on isn’t the odds of the fight. He focuses on the fact that Israel needed somebody to intervene. And when you look at the story from that perspective, you can start to see how David was doing the same thing for Israel that Jesus would do for all of us later on. Just as David interceded for the Israelites, Jesus interceded for each of us by accepting the cross. So, to be really clear, we’re not David. That’s who we want to see ourselves as, because that telling of the story makes us feel like we can take things on. We feel empowered. And it’s true that when we put faith in God, we can do amazing things. But we’re Israel. We’re the ones cowering on the hill while the temptations of the devil loom over us. We’re not going to go into that kind of battle and win like David did. We’re not equipped to. The only One Who’s equipped to win the battle is Jesus.

So, the first thing I want you to take away from this for your work and even your personal life is, don’t think you’re the savior of the story when, in fact, you’re the one who needs rescuing. Because we do that sometimes. We’ve got some big mess in the company, our family’s falling apart, and we think we’re gonna be the one to run in with the slingshot and fix it all. And meanwhile, we can’t see we’re part of the problem or that we are totally unequipped to bring a solution to the table on our own. And we let our roles get all messed up, and our ego starts to drive, and so then we start making not-so-smart choices. We start thinking that our faith in God means it’s impossible to lose, even when we start defending things He’d never defend, and even when we haven’t even checked in to see if our battle is what He wants us to do.

The second thing I want you to take away is, David was merciful to Israel. You know, when their army was hiding in their tents, he didn’t rub it in their faces. He just picked up the stone and won. And in the same way, when you’re facing something that’s too big for you, God doesn’t shame you. He’s not gonna tell you how awful you are or that you should never have joined the army in the first place. He just says, “You can’t win this, so I’m gonna go win it for you.” He defends your honor and your place with God. So, I want you to know that, whatever you’re facing, whatever challenges you’ve got at home or in your work, you don’t have to let shame bury you. Don’t let that happen, because then a lot of the time what happens is that, after God’s won the fight, we can’t do the work Jesus fought the fight for us to be able to do. We just stay in the tent and think, “How in the world can I ever come out and face Jesus the way that I am? How can I ever come out when I’ve failed Him the way that I have?” But what you have to understand is that He knows full well the way you are. He knows you screw up. He knows you can’t win it. But He also knows that you belong to God and that, because you’re in God’s image, you’re worth defending. He knows that God loves you too much not to give you a champion. And you have to understand that Jesus didn’t fight that fight so you would stay in the tent and pick at yourself. He fought it as your champion so you could be free to come out, so that the Goliath of your sin wouldn’t be between you and everything God wants to give you. So, I just want to challenge you to just fully accept what He did and stop hiding. Go do the work. You don’t have to fight Goliath, but you’re here for a reason, and the best way you can say thank you to Jesus for what He did is to go ask God what that reason is. You’re still in God’s army and you still absolutely can serve and do awesome things to give Him the glory He deserves.

So, on that note, I’m gonna invite you to pray with me.

God, I pray today for those who feel like underdogs, the people who everybody looks at and dismisses as incapable or too inexperienced. I pray You’ll give them courage like David had to trust You. But Lord, help people to remember more than anything that You will always intercede for us, that You’ll always be our champion. This world is tough and we need You to keep being that for us. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

I’m gonna call it a day, listeners. I just want to give you a quick reminder that our sister site, faithfulontheclock.com, is now live. I’ve been filling the site with archives of all my faith-oriented social media posts, articles, video, audio, and lots of great stuff. So, go to faithfulontheclock.com, register for free to get started, and then if you like what you see, upgrade to a paid tier. Each little bit of paid support helps me to keep producing the show and all of the assets that go along with it. For the next episode, I’ll be covering the top misconceptions people have about bosses and how they can influence your interactions on the job. Until that hits in two weeks, be blessed.