In the hymn Yield not to Temptation there is a line which says Each victory will help you some other to win. It’s true. David recounts how he had fought against a lion and a bear while working as a shepherd (1 Sam. 17:34). He was only young at the time (v.33), and now he faces Goliath and those events come to his mind. Previous events provide examples of God’s providential care providing opportunity to know the difference between gnosis and epignosis. The one refers to knowledge obtained, while the other speaks of knowledge by experience. So past events can provide confidence in our own ability (with the Lord’s help – Phil. 4:13). It is really an application of the principle of the talents in the parable by that name. Small victories lead to bigger ones. A person might say, I have nothing to fall back on; no history of success. Well, that could be for two main reasons, the first being I’ve never tried. If that is the case, it is time to start.
Trials and temptations and challenges are to be welcomed (Jas. 1:3). Is God going to protect us from all trials and temptations? Obviously not! Not even Jesus, the well-beloved Son, was exempt. If we have no history of success it means we haven’t taken advantage of what God most surely has done for us. Every soldier needs training, and that’s true in the Lord’s army too. The Lord is too wise a Master to leave His troops untested. The slothful man never tries because he says there is a lion in the street! Therefore he has no history of success. A small man once said to a big man, You know, if I was as big as you I’d go into the woods and fight a bear. The big man replied, There are a lot of little bears in the woods too. There are challenges for all of us that we need to take up, and God will provide them. There is so much of this What I wouldn’t do if…I had that talent…things were different for me…I could just get this squared away. God provides challenges so we can grow, but if we are in the habit of avoiding challenges and retreating into a shell, or finding an excuse, we shall remain spiritual pygmies. What’s at the core of all this? What was it the one talent man said?…..I was afraid.
Some facts about fear are probably worth mentioning. Some people like it in small doses or artificial settings. For example, some love scary movies because it is an artificial setting and it’s all over in a short while. This brings up the point that we have an increasing number of people who expect life to be like in the sitcoms and all problems to be solved in 30 minutes! The fact of the matter is some problems aren’t solved in 30 minutes and some won’t be solved in this lifetime – they just have to be lived with. But, back to the point, being scared for an hour or two is not a substitute for facing the fears of life. Some people are too aggressive and take the law into their own hands while others are too timid and do nothing. Proper fear of the Lord is the problem in both cases. But we have all experienced fear: a little girl asked her father, Are you afraid of cows, Daddy? No, he answered. Are you afraid of wiggly worms? No, of course not. Oh, Daddy you aren’t afraid of anything except Mommy aren’t you!
Because the Bible says so many times fear not, it means most of our fears are unrealistic, but this is not to suggest that fear is not real even if unrealistic. Because it is not realistic, you are the feeding the fear. Our fear is more related to what if’s than it is to certainties. The more you look at a fear the more it grows and we can become preoccupied with the fear and, consequently, with ourselves. The power of God and the truth about the situation become less meaningful than the fear. Why did David take on the bear and the lion in his youth? I mean, after all he risked it all. If he failed he died or suffered severe injuries. One reason is that’s what shepherds do and he was a shepherd! When he got the job he got the responsibilities that went with it.
The story is told of a young camel who asked his father, What are these two big humps on our back, Dad? Well, there’s not a lot of food in the vast deserts we travel in, so we’re able to store up a lot of food in these humps of ours. It’s in the form of fat, you see. The son went on, That’s marvellous, but what about these eyelashes – they’re so thick and heavy. What’s that all about? Yes they are aren’t they. Well, in the desert we get these incredibly strong winds and half the desert seems to be flying through the air. And the speed of that flying sand makes it dangerous. Others aren’t as well equipped as we are. We just shut these big heavy lids and clamp down these magnificent eyelashes and, bingo – we’re safe! Can you beat that! Then these feet of ours. It seems like we have a double-helping, all sponge and spread. What are these for? Deserts are dangerous places. It isn’t hard for men and animals like cows and horses to get swallowed up in that sand. Not us; we have these big feet so we won’t go under and suffocate. Well, we’re just something else, aren’t we Dad? Just one more question. With all this equipment, what are we doing in Taronga Park Zoo?!
We are called to a promised land, but guess where we are now? In the desert! God has equipped us for this sojourn and its challenges. David not only took on the bear and the lion because it was part of the job description, but because he had faith in the Lord. He believed that God would help him do what he had to do. Does God care about shepherds and their livelihood? David thought so and he was right. God is interested in us more than when we’re at the church building (Ps. 107:21-31).
Now it might just be that its the not the case someone has never tried, but rather someone has tried and failed (something like if David had taken on the lion and had been severely mauled). We have all had bad experiences that cause hurt and pain and we fear it may happen again. First, lets understand that failure is a part of life. Have you ever read a chronicle of the life of Abraham Lincoln? The number of failures he had either in business or politics was legion, but we remember him for the success of his presidency. Most (a lot) people in Australia know that Don Bradman got out for a duck in his last innings, but that failure didn’t make him a failure. What was the name of the man who took his wicket – do you know? You probably don’t remember but you remember Bradman. True failure is allowing the fear of failure to prevail over your life. My dog Toby understood this. He was a Foxie, but he wasn’t going to die wondering whether one more try to best the big German Shepherd across the road would bring success. Like Edison who took at least a thousand experiments before he got a light bulb to work successfully.
But fear preoccupies our attention, disabling us from reacting properly to a given situation, and so we have another bad experience. Thus our fear is encouraged and enlarged, and we become unable to separate the fear from the facts. We begin to fear the fear experience as much as the idea of what could happen. As President Roosevelt said, We have nothing to fear except fear itself. If we can’t avoid the situation, our increased fear and self-preoccupation causes the cycle to repeat itself. Fear does not give up easily, but light dispels darkness. Stop paying the fear attention (Phil. 4:13; 1 Sam. 17:45) and act. Fear produces the wrong actions. Winston Churchill said An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last! The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God you end up fearing nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God you fear everything else. Jesus feared the cross, but His desire to please the Father enabled Him to overcome the fear.
As David could draw on his successes in his past life to help him with the future, so we can gain from the experience of others, like David, to realise that God is bigger than fear. Doug Larson said, It must have taken a lot of courage to discover that frog legs are edible. Peter Drucker said, When you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision. David told others what he was going to do and I’m sure that helped him. He had opened his mouth and committed himself and he was going to fulfil his word (like Herod who had opened his mouth to Salome, the daughter of Herodias; or Esther who said I will go to the King and then asked friends to pray for her). And having done that David ran toward Goliath (1 Sam. 17:48). Having made the decision timidity would not help the execution of it. And God has not given the Christian the spirit of timidity (2 Tim. 1:7). How many times has a batsman got out because he was in two minds and not committed to the shot?
The types of fear fall into three basic categories. One is a sense of inadequacy, wherein we feel we do not have what it takes. Then there is the fear of rejection whereby we are afraid someone might laugh at us or think we are a klutz. And of course there is the fear of failure. All of these can be loosely grouped under one category – the fear of men (cf Matt.10:28ff).
What do you fear? Fight it, and each victory will help you some other to win.