Facing Your Giants: God Still Does the Impossible Read online

  © 2006 Max Lucado

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  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.

  Other Scripture references are from the following sources:

  The American Standard Version (ASV). God’s Word (God’s Word) is a copyrighted work of God’s Word to the Nations Bible Society. Quotations are used by permission. Copyright 1995 by God’s Word to the Nations Bible Society. All rights reserved. The Good News Bible: The Bible in Today’s English Version (TEV) copyright 1992 by the American Bible Society. The King James Version of the Bible (KJV). The Living Bible (TLB), copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, Ill. Used by permission. The Message (MSG), copyright © 1993. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. New American Standard Bible (NASB), © 1960, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation. The New Century Version® (NCV), © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV). Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers. Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT), copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. The New Revised Standard Version Bible (NRSV), © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. J. B. Phillips: The New Testament in Modern English, Revised Edition (PHILLIPS). Copyright © J. B. Phillips 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lucado, Max.

  Facing your giants / Max Lucado.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-8499-0181-2

  ISBN 978-0-8499-9149-3 (International Edition)

  ISBN 978-0-8811-3350-9 (Spanish Edition)

  1. David, King of Israel. 2. Goliath (Biblical giant) 3. Christian life. 4. Spirituality. I. Title.

  BS580.D3L83 2006

  222'.4092—dc22

  2006019176

  Printed in the United States of America

  07 08 09 10 11 RRD 8 7 6 5 4

  Denalyn and I gladly dedicate this volume to

  Rod and Tina Chisholm—

  faithful, dependable, and joyful servants.

  We thank God for more than two decades of friendship.

  ALSO BY MAX LUCADO

  INSPIRATIONAL

  A Gentle Thunder

  A Love Worth Giving

  And the Angels Were Silent

  Come Thirsty

  Cure for the Common Life

  God Came Near

  He Chose the Nails

  He Still Moves Stones

  In the Eye of the Storm

  In the Grip of Grace

  It’s Not about Me

  Just Like Jesus

  Next Door Savior

  No Wonder They Call Him the Savior

  On the Anvil

  Six Hours One Friday

  The Applause of Heaven

  The Great House of God

  Traveling Light

  When Christ Comes

  When God Whispers Your Name

  CHILDREN’S BOOKS

  A Hat for Ivan

  Alabaster’s Song

  All You Ever Need

  Because I Love You

  Best of All

  He Chose You

  Hermie, a Common Caterpillar

  If Only I Had a Green Nose

  Jacob’s Gift

  Just in Case You Ever Wonder

  Just Like Jesus (for teens)

  Just the Way You Are

  Next Door Savior (for teens)

  Punchinello and the Most Marvelous Gift

  Small Gifts in God’s Hands

  Stanley the Stinkbag

  Tell Me the Secrets

  Tell Me the Story The Crippled Lamb

  The Way Home

  With You All the Way You Are Mine

  You Are Special Your Special Gift

  GIFT BOOKS

  A Heart Like Jesus

  Everyday Blessings

  For These Tough Times God’s Mirror

  God’s Promises for You

  God Thinks You’re Wonderful

  Grace for the Moment, Vol. I & II

  Grace for the Moment Journal

  In the Beginning Just for You

  Just Like Jesus Devotional Let the Journey Begin

  Mocha with Max

  One Incredible Moment Safe in the Shepherd’s Arms

  Shaped by God The Cross

  The Gift for All People

  The Greatest Moments Traveling Light for Mothers

  Turn

  FICTION

  An Angel’s Story The Christmas Candle

  The Christmas Child

  BIBLES (GENERAL EDITOR)

  He Did This Just for You (New Testament)

  The Devotional Bible

  Grace for the Moment Daily Bible

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  1 Facing Your Giants

  2 Silent Phones

  3 Raging Sauls

  4 Desperate Days

  5 Dry Seasons

  6 Grief-Givers

  7 Barbaric Behavior

  8 Slump Guns

  9 Plopping Points

  10 Unspeakable Grief

  11 Blind Intersections

  12 Strongholds

  13 Distant Deity

  14 Tough Promises

  15 Thin Air-ogance

  16 Colossal Collapses

  17 Family Matters

  18 Dashed Hopes

  19 Take Goliath Down!

  Afterword: What Began in Bethlehem

  Study Guide

  Notes

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The list of people who midwifed this book is long. Each deserves a standing ovation and early retirement.

  Editors Liz Heaney and Karen Hill. When it comes to prompting thick-headed authors, you wrote the book.

  Steve and Cheryl Green. If the country had overseers like you, we’d all sleep better. Thank you for your million and one acts of service.

  David Moberg and the W team. The highest standard of publishing.

  Susan Ligon. Your devotion to detail is exceeded only by your devotion to Christ. I’m grateful.

  Sam Moore, Mike Hyatt, and the Thomas Nelson family. If a better team exists, I’ve not seen it.

  The Oak Hills ministers, staff, and elders. May you continue to be a home for every heart.

  The UpWords family of Becky, Margaret, and Tina. What gifts you have and gifts you are!

  Eugene Peterson. Each reading of your books touches me. Leap Over a Wall changed me. Where my words sound too much like yours, forgive me—you get the credit.

  Carol Bartley. Scotland Yard should have such a sleuth. I stand in awe of your editorial skills.

  Steve Halliday. Thanks for another insightful Study Guide.

  David Treat. Your prayers winged these words to h
eaven.

  My three daughters, Jenna, Andrea, and Sara. Every day more beautiful. Every day more godly.

  And to Denalyn. If there’s a law limiting a husband’s love for his wife, you’ll have to visit me in prison. After twenty-five years, I’m still starstruck by you.

  As Goliath moved closer to attack,

  David quickly ran out to meet him.

  —1 Samuel 17:48 (NLT)

  1

  FACING YOUR GIANTS

  THE SLENDER, beardless boy kneels by the brook. Mud moistens his knees. Bubbling water cools his hand. Were he to T notice, he could study his handsome features in the water. Hair the color of copper. Tanned, sanguine skin and eyes that steal the breath of Hebrew maidens. He searches not for his reflection, however, but for rocks. Stones. Smooth stones. The kind that stack neatly in a shepherd’s pouch, rest flush against a shepherd’s leather sling. Flat rocks that balance heavy on the palm and missile with comet-crashing force into the head of a lion, a bear, or, in this case, a giant.

  Goliath stares down from the hillside. Only disbelief keeps him from laughing. He and his Philistine herd have rendered their half of the valley into a forest of spears; a growling, bloodthirsty gang of hoodlums boasting do-rags, BO, and barbed-wire tattoos. Goliath towers above them all: nine feet, nine inches tall in his stocking feet, wearing 125 pounds of armor, and snarling like the main contender at the World Wide Wrestling Federation championship night. He wears a size-20 collar, a 101/2 hat, and a 56-inch belt. His biceps burst, thigh muscles ripple, and boasts belch through the canyon. “This day I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other” (1 Sam. 17:10 NIV). Who will go mano a mano conmigo? Give me your best shot.

  No Hebrew volunteers. Until today. Until David.

  David just showed up this morning. He clocked out of sheep watching to deliver bread and cheese to his brothers on the battle-front. That’s where David hears Goliath defying God, and that’s when David makes his decision. Then he takes his staff in his hand, and he chooses for himself five smooth stones from the brook and puts them in a shepherd’s bag, in a pouch that he has, and his sling is in his hand. And he draws near to the Philistine (17:40).1

  Goliath scoffs at the kid, nicknames him Twiggy. “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” (17:43 NASB). Skinny, scrawny David. Bulky, brutish Goliath. The toothpick versus the tornado. The minibike attacking the eighteen-wheeler. The toy poodle taking on the rottweiler. What odds do you give David against his giant?

  Better odds, perhaps, than you give yourself against yours.

  Your Goliath doesn’t carry sword or shield; he brandishes blades of unemployment, abandonment, sexual abuse, or depression. Your giant doesn’t parade up and down the hills of Elah; he prances through your office, your bedroom, your classroom. He brings bills you can’t pay, grades you can’t make, people you can’t please, whiskey you can’t resist, pornography you can’t refuse, a career you can’t escape, a past you can’t shake, and a future you can’t face.

  You know well the roar of Goliath.

  David faced one who foghorned his challenges morning and night. “For forty days, twice a day, morning and evening, the Philis-tine giant strutted in front of the Israelite army” (17:16 NLT). Yours does the same. First thought of the morning, last worry of the night—your Goliath dominates your day and infiltrates your joy.

  How long has he stalked you? Goliath’s family was an ancient foe

  * * *

  First thought of the morning, last worry of the night—

  your Goliath dominates your day, and infiltrates your joy.

  * * *

  of the Israelites. Joshua drove them out of the Promised Land three hundred years earlier. He destroyed everyone except the residents of three cities: Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod. Gath bred giants like Yosemite grows sequoias. Guess where Goliath was raised. See the G on his letter jacket? Gath High School. His ancestors were to Hebrews what pirates were to Her Majesty’s navy.

  Saul’s soldiers saw Goliath and mumbled, “Not again. My dad fought his dad. My granddad fought his granddad.”

  You’ve groaned similar words. “I’m becoming a workaholic, just like my father.” “Divorce streaks through our family tree like oak wilt.” “My mom couldn’t keep a friend either. Is this ever going to stop?”

  Goliath: the long-standing bully of the valley. Tougher than a two-dollar steak. More snarls than twin Dobermans. He awaits you in the morning, torments you at night. He stalked your ancestors and now looms over you. He blocks the sun and leaves you standing in the shadow of a doubt. “When Saul and his troops heard the Philistine’s challenge, they were terrified and lost all hope” (17:11 MSG).

  But what am I telling you? You know Goliath. You recognize his walk and wince at his talk. You’ve seen your Godzilla. The question is, is he all you see? You know his voice—but is it all you hear? David

  * * *

  You’ve seen your Godzilla.

  The question is, is he all you see?

  * * *

  saw and heard more. Read the first words he spoke, not just in the battle, but in the Bible: “David asked the men standing near him, ‘What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?’” (17:26 NIV).

  David shows up discussing God. The soldiers mentioned nothing about him, the brothers never spoke his name, but David takes one step onto the stage and raises the subject of the living God. He does the same with King Saul: no chitchat about the battle or questions about the odds. Just a God-birthed announcement: “The Lord, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine” (17:37).

  He continues the theme with Goliath. When the giant mocks David, the shepherd boy replies:

  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 there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands. (17:45–47 NIV)

  No one else discusses God. David discusses no one else but God.

  A subplot appears in the story. More than “David versus Goliath,” this is “God-focus versus giant-focus.”

  David sees what others don’t and refuses to see what others do. All eyes, except David’s, fall on the brutal, hate-breathing hulk. All compasses, sans David’s, are set on the polestar of the Philistine. All journals, but David’s, describe day after day in the land of the Neanderthal. The people know his taunts, demands, size, and strut. They have majored in Goliath.

  David majors in God. He sees the giant, mind you; he just sees God more so. Look carefully at David’s battle cry: “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel” (17:45).

  Note the plural noun—armies of Israel. Armies? The common observer sees only one army of Israel. Not David. He sees the Allies on D-day: platoons of angels and infantries of saints, the weapons of the wind and the forces of the earth. God could pellet the enemy with hail as he did for Moses, collapse walls as he did for Joshua, stir thunder as he did for Samuel.2

  David sees the armies of God. And because he does, David hurries and runs toward the army to meet the Philistine (17:48).3

  David’s brothers cover their eyes, both in fear and embarrassment. Saul sighs as the young Hebrew races to certain death. Goliath throws back his head in laughter, just enough to shift his helmet and expose a square inch of forehead flesh. David spots the target and seizes the moment. The sound of the swirli
ng sling is the only sound in the valley. Ssshhhww. Ssshhhww. Ssshhhww. The stone torpedoes through the air and into the skull; Goliath’s eyes cross and legs buckle. He crumples to the ground and dies. David runs over and yanks Goliath’s sword from its sheath, shish-kebabs the Philistine, and cuts off his head.

  You might say that David knew how to get a head of his giant.

  When was the last time you did the same? How long since you ran toward your challenge? We tend to retreat, duck behind a desk of work or crawl into a nightclub of distraction or a bed of forbidden love. For a moment, a day, or a year, we feel safe, insulated, anesthetized, but then the work runs out, the liquor wears off, or the lover leaves, and we hear Goliath again. Booming. Bombastic.

  Try a different tack. Rush your giant with a God-saturated soul. Giant of divorce, you aren’t entering my home! Giant of depression? It may take a lifetime, but you won’t conquer me. Giant of alcohol, bigotry, child abuse, insecurity . . . you’re going down. How long since you loaded your sling and took a swing at your giant?

  Too long, you say? Then David is your model. God called him “a man after my own heart” (Acts 13:22 niv). He gave the appellation to no one else. Not Abraham or Moses or Joseph. He called Paul an

  * * *

  Rush your giant with a God-saturated soul.

  * * *

  apostle, John his beloved, but neither was tagged a man after God’s own heart.

  One might read David’s story and wonder what God saw in him. The fellow fell as often as he stood, stumbled as often as he conquered. He stared down Goliath, yet ogled at Bathsheba; defied God-mockers in the valley, yet joined them in the wilderness. An Eagle Scout one day. Chumming with the Mafia the next. He could lead armies but couldn’t manage a family. Raging David. Weeping David. Bloodthirsty. God-hungry. Eight wives. One God.

  A man after God’s own heart? That God saw him as such gives hope to us all. David’s life has little to offer the unstained saint. Straight-A souls find David’s story disappointing. The rest of us find it reassuring. We ride the same roller coaster. We alternate between swan dives and belly flops, soufflés and burnt toast.