The Battle is the Lord's

David was just a kid when he felled Goliath, a giant of a man, with one smooth stone to the head.  He had gathered three stones just in case.  Every one of the soldiers, including King Saul, was afraid of this monster Philistine warrior.  The entire Israeli army stood on one mount while Goliath stood blathering his hatred for them on the other mount. "I dare you to send one man from your army to fight against me!" he bellowed. "If I win you serve us.  If  you win we serve you."  Simple.  Man to man.  Only this man was HUGE!  A very big problem with no apparent solution.  Little Jewish men going against an enormous enemy.  But they forgot one thing.  Their God loved them.

Enter David.  Young, tanned and handsome.  Bringing some food to his cowardly brothers when he hears the disgusting challenges of the foul mouthed, foul breathed Philistine.  What the...?  Why are they just standing around letting Goliath spout this blasphemy against their God?  Made the kid mad!  Really mad!  Angry enough to pick up some rocks for his sling. Afterall, God had already helped David kill a lion and a bear while he was protecting his father's sheep.  What was one Philistine frothing at the mouth to God?  Without the oversized armor offered to him by King Saul, David faced the giant with these words: "Today the Lord will hand you over to me and I will kill you and cut off your head.....the battle belongs TO THE LORD, and HE will hand  you over to us." 

"Ha, ha, ha....lol!!!"  spewed Goliath right before the little stone hit him between the eyes, stunning him as his giant body thudded to the ground, David atop him immediately, cutting off the head of his enemy with the giant's own sword.

David might have remembered this as he left Jerusalem in disgrace so many years later.  This time the enemy was his own son Absalom.  You can read the story in 2 Samuel 13-18.  As Absalom takes over the palace, David's household, save the 10 concubines that he left to watch over the palace, flees in order to save their lives.  On the road, a man from Saul's family, Shimei, throws rocks and dust at David, cursing him as a man of bloodshed for the death of Saul.  David did not kill Saul.  Actually, Saul killed himself. Fell on his own sword.  Abishai, David's servant, wanted to cut off Shimei's head right there, but David thought better of it. This time it wasn't Goliath and the taunts were not against the Lord, it was a wiry little peasant cursing David himself.  Perhaps what Shimei was saying was from God.  Perhaps God was cursing the king through Shimei.  "What if he is cursing me because the Lord told Him to do so?  He has more right to kill me than Absalom does. Maybe the Lord will see my misery and repay me with something good for Shimei's cursing today." Is this the same David who picked up the smooth stone?  What happened here?

By the end of the day, weary and tired, covered in imprecation and dirt, David and his household had made it to the Jordan River.  The Bible says they were exhausted and David rested there.  Perhaps it was that evening that Psalm 3 began forming in his mind.  Only God truly knows our motives, our hearts - our victories and defeats.  David knew of his own sins.  Bathsheba and Uriah. Adultery and murder.  He could never trust in God to deliver him because he was a great moral man.  Even though he had many sterling moments in the past,  there was some pretty significant baggage.  Stuff we think will not pass muster if we think we can get into heaven by just being good...or having all the good stuff we have done outweigh the bad crap.   Yet in Psalm 3, David says: "I can lie down and go to sleep, and I will wake up again because the Lord gives me strength.  Thousands of troops may surround me, but I am not afraid."  Why?  Because the "battle is the Lord's" to decide.  It was the Lord's with Goliath - it is the Lord's with Absalom.  It is the Lord's when we stand in the power of the truth or when we fight against a mess of our own making.  Strange how He loves us.  He is accused of being such a mean old god....but I would suggest that He is more loving than is justifiable.  I would be on the side of the kid with the rock, but the guy who committed adultery and killed the woman's husband to cover it up?  David knew his God.  Trusted God's heart. 

And, it was David's heart that God loved.  It was a clearly imperfect heart, but it was one that ultimately believed in God to be the divider of truth - to be just and merciful at once.  I can lie down and sleep, wake up with renewed strength, because my battles, big or small, depend on the grace and mercy extended to me by my Father, not on my performance...good or bad.  If I know God will do the right thing, the best thing....I can sleep.  I can trust.  I can say to my enemy, powerful as he tells me he is, that my battle belongs to my Lord.