5 Smooth Stones [Reclaiming February~Day 7]

Not surprising, but I’ve always loved words. As a little girl I kept a list of words I wanted to remember. I collected them like other kids collected comic books or baseball cards. The bigger, the better. I found them fascinating. I’d circle them in books I was reading and work out the pronunciations before google was even a thing. I guess the English teacher gig was always meant to be.

Last year, I began to wrestle with some pretty big words. Only this time, I didn’t want to write them down. I didn’t want them on any of my lists. Incurable. Terminal. Metastatic. Let's not even consider all the medical jargon I've been juggling. Yikes. 

Big words. 

Massive meanings. 

Giant sized implications.  

Metastatic cancer is a massive giant. An ugly ogre. 

David, in the Psalms, depicts God as a giant slayer. But well before David wrote one word he was just a young shepherd boy. The antithesis of anything large. An average, ordinary shepherd taking care of his sheep until he faced his own giant—Goliath. You probably know the story. 

David, with his sling and his 5 stones standing before the massive Goliath in his 9 feet and his bad boy bronze and his invincible iron. 

Everyone else was afraid. Even King Saul and his army had forgotten who God was. Forgotten what God does. Forgotten His power and His mighty plan. Forgotten what it means to have Him on our side. 

But not David.

After tending his sheep, David was sent to the battle to only bring lunch for his big brothers. Nothing more. Just lunch. He didn’t bring armor or weapons or a finely tuned strategic plan. He brought bread and cheese. But when he heard there was a loud mouth, cocky, SOB, ogre taunting the Israelite army he volunteered to go fight him. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t hurry back to his sheep. He didn’t make excuses. He volunteered.

He was the sheep guy. 

The lunch bringer.

The youngest brother. 

The weak one.

But, regardless of all these things he was or wasn’t, he knew God on his side. And that’s all that mattered when that small stone struck the forehead of that big giant and brought him crashing to the earth.

I loved that story as a little girl, but I NEED that story as woman now. I didn’t want these giant words in my life, but I really do want the giant kind of faith David displayed.

I bring absolutely nothing to this battle. But, the young shepherd boy reminds me, I don’t need to bring anything to this battle. God is on my side. And His word encourages me.

After defeating Goliath, David went on to write the Psalms filled with images of God as our great defender, warrior and protector. In the massive problems and the biggest battles, He is with us and He fights for us. Our own weapons matter little. 

Do you need to be reminded of what God can do? I encourage you to begin with the Psalms. These are the words I now write down, spell out, memorize and cling to. These are the words which—if I was a tattoo girl—I’d tattoo across my skin. Who knows, I still might.

These are the words which matter most. 

“I do not trust in my bow, my sword does not bring me victory; but you give us victory over our enemies.” Psalm 44:6-7

“The Lord is my strength and my shield; in Him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to Him.”  Psalm 28:7