On Sunday our kids at Church watched a video about David and Goliath, and I heard they really were engaged with it, so over a coffee I thought I would watch it too. It’s a story I know so well from Mrs Currie’s epic flannelgraph retellings in the Greenock Elim Sunday school. You know the story too a small shepherd boy defeats a giant soldier against all odds. Wee weak boy faces big strong warrior, the odds appeared to be stacked against David.

However, watching the story again made me think that maybe what I remember from Sunday school isn’t entirely right. I came away from watching the story again thinking that David wasn’t the sort of powerless underdog I previously thought he was, and that has implications for us.

In fact, now,

I believe you are never an underdog with God in your corner.

We may face enormous, goliath sized challenges, but with God with us, like David we don’t need to be intimidated.

As I said I was taught in Sunday School it was an unfair fight, tiny boy against enormous warrior. But is that really the case, because we know that David as a shepherd had experience in fighting off dangerous enemies which appeared to be stronger than he was. To protect his sheep, he would have seen off lions and maybe a thief or two. His experience in life equipped him for the big challenge of facing Goliath.  This was a boy who after years of practice knew how to bring down enemies with a sling short. Thinking about this reminded me that our God never wastes our experiences in life, He uses them to equip us for what we will face next in life. (Check out 2 Cor 1)

David came out on top from this epic high-stakes duel with Goliath not just by drawing on his own experience but by relying on God to empower him. His words of faith echo down the centuries and still can inspire us

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

So, I want you to remember that whatever you are facing, however daunting it appears, just like David, you don’t face it alone, God is in your corner, you face every challenge in life, gigantic or small, in the name of the Lord Almighty. Nobody with the Lord Almighty backing them up is an underdog. It was Goliath who should have been afraid, very afraid. Equipped and empowered by God, it was indeed an unfair fight, but it was Goliath who was the real underdog.

Here is what I have been thinking about as I face some big challenges at the moment. God can use my experiences in life to equip me with the knowledge and experience I need to face this challenge and my God will also empower me to overcome it. That’s true for you too.

So, to paraphrase David’s challenge to Goliath, BRING IT ON!

So remember Child of God whatever you face this week, you are not the underdog!

A few weeks ago, the Lord reminded us that we are not powerless underdogs.

1 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Romans 8

 You are not an underdog, through Him who loved you, you are MORE THAN A CONQUEROR.