Facing Our Giants

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Now with extremely limited availability, contact your local retailer for inventory information. Before the famous altercation with Goliath, and we all know the story of David and Goliath, is in our collective social awareness and conscience. I mean, you know, it's part of every pop culture. Everybody knows David and Goliath. It's one of the most famous stories in the Bible.

But let me let me approach this from a little different standpoint today as caregivers. David got there, he was taking some stuff to his brothers who were there, and he got there and he was angry at all the blasphemy that was coming out of Goliath. And it seemed like the army of Israel was just sitting there just kind of listening to it. They were all kind of camped out.

They'd been there for some time. And David mouthed off about it. He said, hey, you know, who is this guy doing this stuff? And his brother, his older brother, got very angry with him. And if you read the chapter so before, you find out it's the oldest brother who Samuel the prophet first saw when he went to Jesse's family to anoint a new king of Israel. You remember the story that God had become displeased with King Saul, and he sent Samuel on this mission to Jesse's family. Jesse came from the tribe of Judah. Saul came from the tribe of Benjamin. And Jesse had these sons. And the first one he saw was Eliab, who's a big strapping fellow, good looking guy. And Samuel said, hey, I think that's the guy.

The Lord told Samuel, no, you're looking at the outside. So we'd already gotten that place with Saul. Saul was a big old tall fellow. He said he was head and shoulders, but everyone else. And, you know, he looked kingly and God was looking for something different. And so Eliab, when he heard David, David's the, the, the runt of the litter. He was the youngest of the family.

And I don't think he was a really a big guy either. And Eliab just was like, you know, here's his big brother talking to a little brother and how many of you all have a big brother and you know what that's like. And so Eliab was not happy that David comes up there and his little kid and starts bowing off, but Saul heard about it. And Saul brought David to him and David said he wanted to fight Goliath. And crazily enough, Saul agreed to let him do it. You know, I thought that was kind of odd, but okay. And so they put his tunic and armor on him and we're going to send him out to battle this kid.

I mean, it's a crazy story if you think about it. And David puts this stuff on and you remember Saul was a tall man, but David wasn't. So David's wearing this armor that didn't fit and he couldn't move around and he was struggling to function in this stuff and he couldn't do it. And David took it off and said, you know, he's going to fight Goliath his own way.

He's going to depend on God's might. And David recognized that he could do this and succeed while wearing something that didn't fit him. Well, let me ask you as a caregiver, how many of us try to fight Goliath while wearing something that doesn't fit?

The conditions of our loved ones as caregivers seem rather formidable giants to us, don't you think? And we can't fight them while trying to be, do and act like something that doesn't fit us. Now I've been guilty of this many times and I've tried to wear things that weren't mine to get in there and mix it up with doctors and medical providers and so forth. And I would learn the vocabulary, but I really didn't understand what I was talking about and I needed to keep my mouth shut and realize that this was not my particular battle to fight.

I didn't need to go in there dressed in something that didn't fit. Or if I was going to fight it, I wasn't going to fight it in a conventional thing. See Saul was putting conventional armor on David in an unconventional fight.

And how many of us wear conventional armor thinking that this is the way we got to do it, but we're in an unconventional fight. Now David faced Goliath with his sling. If you'll notice, he didn't even take a sword into battle. He ended up killing Goliath with his own sword. He knocked him out with his sling and his rock. And then he killed him with his own sword. And so he went out there trusting in God's abilities, not him.

And David wasn't a trained soldier, but his love and his trust in God provided the courage to face a giant. You and I aren't trained medical professionals, most of us. We're not trained mental health experts or any of these things for the most part, by and large. But we don't have to be, okay? That's the good news. We don't have to be.

I don't have to be a brain surgeon, okay? When facing our giants, we can just be ourselves and with love and trust remain confident that the battle belongs to the Lord. And I got a buddy of mine. He's since passed away. He was a great friend. And I remember he became the director of a billion dollar project with the state of Tennessee. It was a huge promotion for him. And he called me up and he said, man, I feel a bit overwhelmed. And he was well qualified for the job in the sense that he'd been in that program for a long time.

He understood it, but taking the helm of this was a big deal. And I reminded him of the old days, years and years ago, he used to run a pizza shop. And I asked him, I said, did you know how to build a pizza oven? He said, well, no. He said, well, no.

And I said, you know, you don't have to know how to build a pizza oven to run a pizza shop. And he stopped for a moment and he got the point that he did not have to know how to do everything and have all this and that going and everything else. Sometimes he could just step into that place and know who to call on to get things done, who to delegate. That's what leaders do.

They know who to assemble for their team and who to call on. David was not a trained warrior and he ended up becoming a great warrior. But at the time he was just a kid. He had fought off lions, I mean, mountain lions and wolves and bears, whatever, you know, as he guarded his family sheep, he had fought off predators. But who did he know to call on? It's a good question, isn't it? And of course he called on the Lord.

He was convinced of this. So I ask you, we don't have to know everything. Who do you call on? We don't have to know how to set a bone. We don't have to know how to operate or to do this.

We don't have to have a degree in pharmacology. We know who to call on. And most importantly, we know that we call upon the Lord. And that's our journey as caregivers, is that we don't have to go into these battles with real giants, wearing something that doesn't fit us, trying to be something that we're not. And the scripture, 1 Samuel 17, 47, listen to this, and all this, this is what David said, all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear for the battle is the Lord's. But doesn't that seem like it applies to us as caregivers? Wouldn't you say that that's a good thing to keep in our mind as we face the real giants that we face every day as caregivers? The battle is the Lord's.

Hmm. Something to think about as we go into battle every day, because it feels like that for us, doesn't it? And whether you're dealing with the enormous giant of Alzheimer's, autism, addiction, whatever else you're dealing with, the battle is the Lord's. This is Hope for the Caregiver, Hopeforthecaregiver.com. This is Peter Roseburger. We'll be right back. Listen to Morenita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Gold Peak Real Brewed Tea.