Goliath Must Fall: Winning the Battle Against Your Giants

by Louie Giglio

But why would we sing when the circumstances are what they are? When the outcome is not yet decided? We sing because we see God.

his mercy has never failed us.

With eyes fixed on Jesus we cry out, “You are in control!” We do not ignore the presence of danger. We declare the presence of our God.

Worship and worry cannot occupy the same space; they can’t both fill our mouths at the same time. One always displaces the other. We either speak doom and destruction, kicking into high gear our worrying and stressing. Or we recount the size and character of the Almighty.

The antidote to fear is faith, and the soundtrack of faith is worship.

When we deliberately and purposely focus our attention on Christ, we are reminded that God is able.

In my senior year, I did okay in singles and even made the number-one-ranked doubles team for our school. I could hold my own in doubles, but the real reason we were number one is because I had the best player on our team as my doubles partner.

You are worth Jesus to God.

But even when the intention is not harmful, a tiny seed of rejection can take root and wreak havoc in seasons to come.

Keep reading—because rejection shows up in more ways than we think. This giant has cousins on both sides of the family—and the two sides don’t look anything alike. On one side of the family, the cousins are called insecurity, low self-esteem, low self-worth, inferiority, and even self-hate. On the other side of the family—and it can be surprising to learn these are related—the cousins are called driven to succeed, perfectionism, winning at all costs, and being an overachiever.

But Adam and Eve didn’t say this. They listened to Satan. They disobeyed God, and when that happened, sin entered the world. A seed was planted called rejection. This seed causes people to think there’s something inferior about us—there’s something else we need to be everything we could be.

We don’t post a selfie when our face is covered with a big breakout of zits. No, we don’t post too many selfies of the real world.

Social media can be a good thing when used well. But if social media is the place we get our value, then we’re sunk. If we live for people’s approval, we will die by their rejection. If we are not careful, then we will forget we were miraculously created by God for a purpose and a plan that he set in motion for our lives. He didn’t ask us to compare ourselves to other people or run someone else’s race.

Some of us have incredible potential, but we don’t want to try anything bold because we don’t want to fail.

The giant of rejection does not want you to remember the miracle of your creation. For this giant to fall, for this giant to be rendered powerless in your life, immerse yourself in this fact: God made you. Uniquely. Beautifully. Intentionally. Purposefully. Wonderfully.

The gospel isn’t just a church talk. It’s not just a good sermon. It tells every human what we need to know in the deepest part of our souls—that we have enormous worth to God. Faced with life without us, his choice was to allow his Son to die for us. That’s how he recovered us and rescued us.

You are worth Jesus to God.

The good news is that in Christ, we have everything we long for. Everything we need. We are not working to gain his acceptance. We already have it.

God lavished his son with acceptance before he did a thing.

I said, “I don’t know exactly what you’ve been trained to think just as you stand on the blocks ready for that beep that signals you into your race. Whatever you’ve been taught to think by your coaches, think that.” I glanced at the head coach and he nodded and smiled. “But if you have a split second to spare, look down at that block and imagine the word accepted written on it with your name. Hear your heavenly Father saying for all to hear, ‘This one is mine.’ Imagine him whispering in your ear: ‘I really, really love you. I am already pleased with you!’ “And then,” I added, “swim your tail off! Not because acceptance is waiting for you at the end of the race—but because you already have it.”

That’s why our giants go down. Our freedom and God’s glory are forever wound together in one story. Our giants go down so that we get free, yes, but they primarily go down so God gets glory.

Because within that frantic process I heard the still, small voice of God, and the word that God was impressing on my heart was this: Fulfill what I led you to do, and do it now. Stop adding things up. Stop worrying. Stop wondering how much stuff you need to have before you can actually step forward and obey me. I am God and I’ve never let you down. Every time I have led you to make a financial decision where you needed to trust me, you have always ended up saying, “Thank you, God, for leading us to do that.” There’s never been a time in your life, married or single, when you’ve given to me and then looked back and said, “We regret giving to God what we gave to God.”

God wasn’t calling us to be comfortable. He was calling us to be faithful.

The point is, most all of us desire to be comfortable, safe, secure. Yet comfortableness and obedience often butt heads.

That’s why comfort is perhaps the scariest giant of them all. It’s so subtle in its deception. It’s the giant that causes us to miss the very best because we have settled for something good. On the surface everything looks fine. What could be wrong with having a good job? A nice family? A routine?

• If we choose the good thing but miss the God-thing.

If we grow accustomed to our sin and fail to confront it and remove it from our lives.

This is a picture of our life in Christ. A nest is a good thing for a while. It’s safe and comfortable and sheltered, and all our spiritual baby-needs are taken care of. But if we’re not careful, then the giant of comfort tempts us to stay in the nest forever. Maybe we’re worried about leaving the nest. We see a big dog below on the ground. We’re not sure if we can fly or not. But staying in the nest is never our end goal. Comfort and familiarity are not what God points us toward. Jesus isn’t in the business of flying to and fro for the rest of our lives, hand-delivering spiritual baby food to us.

In faith, we’re called to rally around the war cry that Christ has come and the battle is already won.

In 1 Samuel 17, we see how comfort stymied the nation of Israel and David’s three older brothers up at their army camp. They repeated their battle cry every day. They got suited up and went and stood on the front lines. They had God on their side and believed he was the one true God. But for forty days they were held back by comfort. They were prevented from moving forward by the lure of ease. The giant was calling the shots. He was dictating their lives.

See, what matters is not that you and I wait until we feel fully strong. We don’t need to learn how to fly before we jump out of the nest. What matters most is that we understand that we move in God’s strength. As soon as we grasp that, we’re ready for the battle. Sure, when we do that we could be put in an uncomfortable position. Yet we will also be in the place where we can see the salvation of God.

1. We remember that faith thrives in discomfort.

Romans 6:8 says, “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” That’s our call. To die with Christ and also to live with him.

That’s why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:10, “For Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

God doesn’t call us to avoid the danger of a lost and dying world. Rather, he leads us into it with the sword of the Spirit in our hands. He says, “We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work” (John 9:4 NLT).

whatever (or whomever) we saddle up with is going to determine where we arrive months and years from now. Who are you linking your life to? Who helps you decide what you spend, where you go, what you watch, what ranks at the top of your to-do list? To walk with Christ is to imitate him. To imitate Christ is to live with ultimate purpose.

When David’s three older brothers and all the rest of the army of Israel got to the end of their days, I believe they all shared a big regret. They’d wasted forty days sitting on that hillside. Forty days they would never get back. Hey, life is short, and what a waste to spend forty days under the influence of a taunting giant. They had the power of God with them. They could have moved forward if they’d wanted to. But they didn’t. They chose comfort instead of discomfort.

The goal is to say, “God, I’m available for whatever you want me to do. When you call on me I will step forward and say, ‘In the name of the Lord God Almighty, I will step into the fight.’ Not in my ability. Not in my power. Not in my strength. But in the name of Jesus. Life is short, and I don’t have enough time to have a complacent heart.”

Really, the combination of both of those two small phrases becomes our mission statement for living by faith. (1) Life is short. And (2) God is big.

I have a deep conviction that the greatest regret any of us will ever know is that of standing before Jesus knowing we lived too safe, too comfortable, too short-sighted. Realizing we were gluttons for pleasure when we were supposed to be lean warriors for others’ freedom and Jesus’ fame.

A whole nation was made free because of the faith of one person.

Reminds me of praying in Charleston for a break in rain. God answered and not only did we benefit but so did others.

God will accomplish his plans one way or another, yet God is inviting you to be part of his plans. It won’t always be comfortable. It won’t always be easy. You will probably need to step forward, not knowing anything other than you’re far out with God on the end of the limb, believing that he wants to make his fame known to this generation of people. Yet if you move in faith, God will always breathe life on your journey.

Simultaneously, a horn sounded from the Israelite camp. “Charge!” An emboldened Israel surged forward, swords and spears in hand, and pursued their enemies with newfound furor. “It’s over,” they shouted as they pumped their fists in the air. “The giant is finished. We win!”

That’s usually how the giant of anger works in our lives. We say, on the surface, everything’s fine. “I don’t consider myself the angry type,” we tell our friends. But underneath the subfloor of our heart something’s been rubbing us the wrong way for a while. Unchecked and unresolved, we are headed for trouble. That’s why dealing with the giant of rejection is so important for us. Most anger is rooted in some form of rejection. Something that was or wasn’t said. Something that was repeatedly done to us. Something we deserved but were deprived of. A hurt. A wound. A stab. What do we do about the giant of anger?

Anger is not wrong. But if anger is uncontrolled, stuffed, misplaced, or given full vent, then anger can do us a lot of harm. Scripture is clear that anger is a giant that can shut down God’s possibility for our lives. If we’re not careful, our anger will burn somebody else’s life down. We can also count on this: unchecked anger is definitely going to burn our lives down too.

It’s amazing how harmful anger can be when it comes on the scene. The good news is that God in heaven has killed the giants in our lives. Jesus Christ Almighty, in his life, death, burial, and resurrection, has killed the giant called anger.

Eliab should have been supportive of David. But instead, Eliab’s heart raged with anger. That was wrongly expressed anger and undoubtedly wrongly felt. Eliab might have felt slighted in the family, but he didn’t have a good reason to be mad at David. Eliab was dealing with his own problems.

This is what angry people do. They find a way to knock down the people around them.

Jesse, the father of all of the boys, paraded his sons out one by one for the prophet to take a look at. Eliab, the oldest, tallest, and toughest son, was led out first. “But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart’” (1 Samuel 16:7).

One of the positive examples given to us in the story of David and Goliath is that David didn’t let the anger of Eliab slow him down. David went on and killed Goliath.