Success Secrets From The BibleНамуна

Marry the Spirit and the Physical

The story of David and Goliath is one of the most popular Sunday school stories. While I like the fact that this story has become so popular within Christendom, I still feel most of the lessons in the story are either miscommunication or blatantly given wrong meaning.

The first misconception in the story is that many say David was a little inexperienced boy. Yes, Saul may have said that David was inexperienced. But was he? While it is true he was a boy, it is not true he was inexperienced. Saul told David he was inexperienced, but David rebuffed his statement by telling him that he killed both a lion and a bear during his time as a shepherd. He went on to say because of that, he was well able to fight the Philistine. Talk about experience. I don’t think an inexperienced person could kill a lion or a bear.

David also refused to wear the armor given to him by Saul, because he said he was not experienced with that type of armor. He chose the weapon he was experienced in. David was an experience sling thrower. He hit Goliath’s forehead, not as a fluke, but because he aimed at it and hit the target.

Another misconception of the story is about the stones. Most people I have heard “spiritualize” the role of the stones in the story. They say because he took five stones, each stone stands for a letter in the word GRACE. This is not true either because the Old Testament was not written in English, and the word grace is not five letters in every language. 

Many people misunderstand what it means to work with God. They think that when someone says, like David, that 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”, take this to mean that when we are working with God we don't have a role to play. They think it means we should do nothing. That is not what it means.

David said I come to you in God’s name, and also continued to say, the battle belongs to God. However, he ended up using a sling and a stone to kill Goliath. He also referred to his experience as a skilled sling thrower. God's involvement in human affairs is done through a partnership between Him and man.

Most people think that a miracle is what happens when they are not involved. There are those who want God to help them achieve success so they pray and sit. They think that God will create a tsunami of success and bring it into their lap. What they need to do is to pray and go do something. God says “He directs the steps of the righteous.” For God to direct us we need to be on the move. 

For the miracle of success to take place, we need to get involved. 

There is nowhere where this is put more plainly than in the story of Joshua and the Amalekites as seen in Exodus 17. The Bible tells us that while Joshua fought the Amalekites, Moses was praying on top of the mountain. This goes to show that to achieve success, we need both physical and spiritual resources. 

Prayer

Dear God,

Help me not to view the spirit as more important than the physical. Help me to have the right balance of the spirit and the physical as I do my work. In Jesus' name.