The Way of the Warrior: An Ancient Path to Inner Peace

by Erwin Raphael McManus

Goliath was, of course, the giant who taunted both God and the armies of Israel, knowing there was not one warrior in all Israel with the courage to fight him. David was at the battlefield that day only to deliver cheese. He was an errand boy. No one thought of him as a warrior. When the people looked at David, they saw only a servant. When David offered his services to King Saul, the man tried to dissuade David, telling him, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”44 David responded to King Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep.”45 David’s understanding of himself was that he was nothing more than a servant. But listen as he describes what it means to be a faithful servant: “When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it.”46