1 Samuel 17-18, Luke 11:1-28 • Key Verse: 1 Samuel 17:45
Upon whom or what do you rely? In a time of financial challenge, do you check your wallet?
When health concerns surface, is your physician the source of your confidence? During the
downs that come between the ups at work, is your network or resume your source of comfort?
When facing a problem, the natural tendency is to look over our resources, abilities and
connections and find in them the confidence needed to get through.
Israel tried that route when faced with a problem of giant proportions—Goliath. No one, not
even the king, who was head and shoulders above all others, would face the champion of the
Philistines.
And then David came on the scene. His reliance was not on past victories, though he had them,
nor on the armor that was made available to him, nor on the weapons he carried with him.
David relied on God. That does not mean that he did not use his skills, ones carefully honed
while shepherding his father’s sheep.
It does mean that his confidence was not in self alone. “You come against me with sword and
spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty,” he said (17:45).
David wanted all to know that “it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is
the Lord’s” (v. 47). God gave a swift victory to the one who trusted Him.
Not all our difficulties will be short-lived. Still, our confidence must not be in self alone but in
God.
Whatever you face today, remember to trust in God. Ask Him to help you. through the challenge
before you.

Woodrow Kroll & Tony Beckett
www.backtothebible.in