Do you ever feel like other people or even the world try to put their “stuff” on you? Sometimes it’s negative things like judgments, or harsh comments, but it could even be something that others might consider helpful, just not helpful to you. It is hard to have the confidence to know what God is saying to you personally sometimes. Going back to the account of David and Goliath in the Bible, I see David experiencing this type of situation.
When David said he would fight Goliath, King Saul immediately spoke a negative judgment to David, “You are not able…you are only a boy.” How many times have we had someone say something similar to us? “You are not able…you are only, (fill in the blank.)” I know I have let this kind of comment stop me in my tracks. David was different though, he had spent so much time with God that he knew what he himself was capable of and he definitely knew what his God was capable of. He spoke up to Saul and convinced him to let him go confront the giant. Basically he had to choose not to receive the negative words from Saul.
However, King Saul still wasn’t completely sure that David could do things his own way. He put his own armor on David, trying to be “helpful.” Have you ever experienced this? Throughout my life I have had so many well-meaning people try to put what has worked for them, or kept them safe, onto me. When I would try their advice on, I had the same feeling of awkwardness that David had trying to move around in Saul’s bulky armor. Once again, David convinced Saul to let him do things his way, which was really the way God had taught him. This time David had to say, “no, thank you,” to something that could have seemed good, it just wasn’t the best.
Both of these ideas can be very hard to implement. We tend to far too easily accept and believe the negative about ourselves, and it can be very difficult to say “no, thank you,” to well-meaning friends. It all comes back to how well we know our Heavenly Father, how closely we are walking with him and how clearly we can hear His words to us, then we can have confidence like David to stand up to kings and giants.
“Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.” Proverbs 29:25
“So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.” Hebrews 10:35-36
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