We all know the story.  A huge hulk of a man, strong, armored to the hilt, weapons of all kinds at his disposal, arrogant, taunting a whole nation of people to come and fight him for their country.  None of the strong opponents would stand up against him.  And why would they? They would get crushed.  Goliath could take most of them down in one stroke without even trying.  He had no weakness.

David on the other hand was youngest of many brothers, not trained in war, wasn’t very old, and was pretty weak compared to the rest.  But he wouldn’t be intimidated. This guy was threatening his family, his country and his people.  So he was brave enough to stand up to the bully.

There are multiple examples of this story every day.  I saw a movie last night called Little Boy, a story of a World War 2 era boy whose best friend, his only friend, his father was called into war because his son, Little Boy’s older brother had flat feet and couldn’t go.  Pepper(Little Boy) was surrounded by Goliath’s both literal and figurative in all aspects of his world.  His brother thought he was a menace, the biggest boy in town bullied him constantly, and a war took his father away from him.  He was scared of all of them, but stood up to all of them.  How about us?  When we face Goliath’s in our lives do we face them with courage or do we shrink in fear? Or are we the Goliath’s, intimidating people in our stature, with our power in our companies, our families, our social media circles, or even just our social circles?

Or sometimes we are a little of both. A lot of people would assume that I am a Goliath, using my powerful bitterness to intimidate other people into joining the Bitter side.  I would actually contend that I am a David.  When I started this blog I was just this weak little bitter voice, carrying around my 5 stones of bitterness, taking on the heavily armed Goliath of happy, upbeat, positive bloggers and people in general.  But then I realized I’m not even David, because he actually succeeded in taking down Goliath.  Or maybe I’m the David that just had bad aim.  I threw my five stones and missed completely.  And then I ran back to the river and found five more stones, but they weren’t near as smooth as the previous 5 and they were even less accurate than before.

And…my analogy isn’t going so well.  Maybe, Goliath is too lazy to come after me, and maybe I’m more of a middle management warrior who is just standing in the middle of the army waiting for David to come along and slay this guy, so I can be part of the winner.  Or maybe, I’m on Goliath’s side, hiding behind the Giant, kind of bored because action isn’t happening, except for my guy is yelling out threats for three days.  Maybe I wish I was at home, just chilling on my stony couch, hitting my stone remote control hoping that someone will invent a device that I can watch while I’m chilling on my stone couch.  And maybe I just want a circular bit of cooked wheat that has some tomato sauce, and some of that goat cheese and perhaps some of that pepperoni stuff from Italy I’ve been hearing about.

Perhaps, I’m out there hoping that we can get some gold from the Israelites, because we haven’t been paid for 3 months, and we haven’t gotten a raise in two years because the government has been taking taxes to pay for all Goliath’s armor and weapons.

My chariot needs some serious repairs and my wife needs a new pan, and my kids need need the 9.0 upgraded stone tablets for “school” when all they ever do is play “Israelite Crush” or “Boom Desert” on their tablets.  And I think we need some mud for our roof because it is leaking.

Ugggh.  Can someone just end this thing? My knees are aching and I’m tired of standing out here.  Sunburn, sand in my sandals, my helmet is getting to sweaty, and my armor seems a little too tight, because we haven’t been to training camp for a while.

So face your Goliaths people.  Be a David.  Or a Goliath.  But just don’t take forever, because some of us would like to be home chilling on our couches.

ARRRRGGGGHHHH

Bitter David v. Goliath Ben