1 Samuel 17: 11 “On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.”
Ever have any of those days when you feel you’re about two steps ahead of depression? Even though it hasn’t caught up with you, it’s in hearing range. It shouts, “Loser!” “Failure!” If you’re not careful it will suck you right into a full blown defeatist attitude. A depressing thought.
How can we live in a way where defeatist and Christian don’t occupy the same area? Where the giants in our lives don’t cause us to respond in the same way Israel’s army did in the face of Goliath’s taunts? They were “dismayed and terrified.” They saw no way out. Their vision was limited to what they could do in the face of such an overwhelming enemy. Goliath surpassed their strength and power, and no one in Israel could imagine standing up to him.
That is, no one but David. To him, Goliath displayed no greater a threat than the lion or bear who attacked his flock. The Lord had delivered him from their claws and he was confident that God would rescue him from Goliath’s sword. He remembered what the army evidently had forgotten: God was on their side. David fearlessly cried out, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” (1 Samuel 17:26). His trust in God—not his own skill—never wavered. He knew the battle belonged to the Lord (verse 47). So did the victory.
When I face circumstances where that defeatist attitude seems to be barking at my heels, nothing helps me resist it more than recounting the faithfulness of the Lord. As I remember his past protection over me and my family, of the many times he directed us when the way ahead stared back like a big question mark, of when he orchestrated victories we could not have possibly won on our own….that indomitable spirit of trust displayed in David begins to rise. I move from relying on my scrawny, frail resources to faith in the living God.
If depression is threatening to overtake you , shift the battle from how you can control the outcome to how the Lord can. That despondency will start to evaporate and before you know it, depression will lie far behind, squirming in the dust…