How To Have Victory Over The Giants In Your Life

The stories of the Old Testament are picture lessons for us. "For whatever things were written before were written FOR OUR LEARNING, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." Romans 15:4 Through the stories of Israel for example, God has presented a picture of the kind of warfare we're in. King David was up against a giant by the name of Goliath. The giants were true giants, tribes of them. We see a similar picture again in another story - Moses sends spies to scout out the land and most of them came back saying they couldn't take that land because there were giants there. This was no allegory, they WERE true giants. The spies said they were as grasshoppers before those giants, and so they were. “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the GIANTS... and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” Numbers 13:32-33 Only two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb - who also saw the giants - spoke a different word, they said "Let's go," BECAUSE they knew that it was God himself who was bringing them to this land, so it would be God himself who would give them victory. David wasn't afraid of the giant Goliath. He knew that anyone who came against God's people and boasted how he was going to destroy them - was no match for the God of Israel. With a few stones, David toppled that giant, and then took the giant's own sword and killed him with his own sword! Are there giants in your life? Things that are just too powerful against you? God has showed you from his Word that you are not to fear them, but that you are to seek the Lord as to HOW to defeat them. The Old Testament stories of victory over giants is a picture of your victory over the giants in your life. "But," you say, "the circumstances in my life are complicated, they are too big for me." That's the whole point - God has shown us that we WILL be come against by giants that truly ARE too big for us. And God knows that there's no way you have the strength or the wisdom to overcome them. You don't. But he does. And you have to show which of the spies you are - one of those who refused to encounter them, or are you the Joshua or Caleb who said "Let's go" because they knew that what God said - will be! But first, you need to receive God's strategy for overcoming your giant. When the children of Israel were up against Jericho, the Lord told them to walk around the city blowing trumpets. He told them exactly how many times to do that, and explained to them the details. They followed the details exactly, and those walls came down. In other words, God used a strategy that made no common sense in order to accomplish the victory. That's why it's supremely important that you get the strategy from him - sometimes what he will tell you to do will make no common sense. But as surely as he is God, you can trust that if you follow what he tells you to do, that wall will come down, that enemy will be defeated. So - how does one receive the particular strategy needed? The one element you have to put into the story is your TIME. You have to take the giant to the Lord and pray, and seek the Lord's face, and wait upon him to show you how to proceed. It takes TIME, and to some people that's a hard thing to give. But unless you receive from the Lord the direction he will give, you won't be able to do it on your own. Set aside some time to spend before the Lord. Get down on your knees and bow before him. Acknowledge him as Almighty God, your Lord, your shield, your fortress, the God in whom you trust. Empty your mind of YOUR ways, your imaginations, the ways YOU would approach the problem, and seek instead HIS way, ask him to show you exactly what to do - and if he tells you to go dunk yourself in a river with mud on your eyes, then put mud on your eyes and go dunk yourself in the river. Whatever he shows you to do, do it. "He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And he said to him, 'Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.' ...So he went and washed, and came back seeing." John 9:6-7 The ways of God are not the ways of man. He alone can defeat your enemies, but it has to be his way. Your way won't work, and I suggest that you already know that, because your ways have not worked until now. His ways though, are sure. He never fails.