“The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

I think it’s fairly safe to say that most readers don’t struggle in their day-to-day existence with people wanting and actively seeking their death.  So when David writes in Psalm 27:2, “When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me…” and in verse 12 says that they are “breathing out violence,” most of us cannot relate.  My guess is that most of our “enemies” are things like a certain difficult professor in my college class, or some employee or boss at work, or an aging body that doesn’t do what it once did, or even a nagging family member.  But those wanting to have me for dinner?  Violence?  Death?  I don’t think so.  Not for me anyway.

So how can we relate to David, who did face those things early in his adult life, when he writes in verse 1, “The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”  He had enemies galore that would celebrate like it was New Year’s if they had killed David.  Because of this constant danger, we discern the intensity of David’s words.  God was indeed his strength.  Think pf the Philistines in general, and Goliath in particular.  Here this 9-foot-plus giant trudges out from enemy lines and for forty days (1 Samuel 17:16) roars his belittling derogatories about Israel and her God.  So weak was this God that no one, not a single soldier, dare step forward and fight with the strength God could give.  Already having killed a bear and a lion (17:37), David knew this giant would be as dead as those animals.  And Goliath deserved it all the more!  It would be nothing for God to do this.  David was merely the instrument.

Even though he was still quite young, David knew enough not to come in his own power: “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.  This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head.  Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands” (17:45-47).

Then David does something remarkable: he runs toward the giant.  Having played some football in my time, I can tell you that running toward an object while trying to throw something at it usually decreases your accuracy.  It’s harder to hit the object on the run than when standing still.  So I can’t help but see the petrified faces in Israel’s formation, and the confident, smirking faces on the Philistine side.  And with not 5, not 4, not 3 not 2, but one stone, he fells the giant.  He was probably dead before he hit the ground.  I see the tables turned on all those facial expressions.  A mighty rush of invincibility rages through the veins of Israeli soldiers while a sense of panicking doom replaces the Philistines’ cocky self-assurance faster than a flash of lightning.  And the rout is on!

David didn’t say, “I am the strength of my life” for good reason.  What man in their right mind would say that?  Funny thing is, most men think that.  Or at least most young men.  Young studs frequently believe they are all the strength that’s needed.  That is why they don’t trust God, or at least one reason why.  In another time and place God told Zerubbabel, “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit” (Zechariah 4:6).  That’s man’s might and power God said wasn’t needed.  The next verse speaks of a mighty mountain becoming level ground.  The point was obvious: God-sized tasks — in Zerubbabel’s case, completing the restoration of the Temple — require God-sized strength.  If you don’t think so, just put in one day trying to keep God’s law.  If you’re honest, by sundown you’ll find yourself a complete loser.  We don’t ever measure up to God in any way or in any area: not in strength, not in holiness, not in wisdom, nothing.

Men, women and children all have to come to the end of their strength before they realize they need Zerubbabel’s replacement strategy: “by my Spirit”.  Some might argue that after Goliath hit the dirt dead, the Israelis were filled with so much bravado, nothing more.  But it began with David, who inspired (meaning encouraged in spirit, in this case, by the Holy Spirit) his fellow soldiers that God was with them, not the Palestinians.  God’s strength in David was real, regularly.  So with the Israelis that day.

Like David, do recognize your weakness and find your strength in God (2 Corinthians 12:10)?