A conversation I had yesterday with someone going through an intense time and then watching part of an episode of House Of David has got me thinking today.
Incidentally, side note, House of David is currently streaming on Amazon Prime and, from the bits I have seen, is worth watching! Of course there are extra biblical bits in the storyline, and creative back stories and portrayals of the characters involved but that’s why it is good that we can check the original! Like The Chosen, I believe that God can use it to speak to us, encourage us into scripture and to deepen our relationship with him. For those who are concerned with accuracy or additions to the storyline, it is not meant to replace the bible, and I believe that, like The Chosen, it actually encourages us to dig into the bible more.
Anyway, the episode I caught the end of last night was the one where David fights Goliath and what I was struck by was the portrayal of how he was feeling in the moment. Often I think we can read the story of David and Goliath focussing on the incredible moment of victory and courage that it was. However, David was still very young, was not a trained soldier and was facing a giant of a man that had intimidated the whole of the Israelite army, including many seasoned warriors. What the episode definitely portrayed was an awareness of his destiny, a courage, a conviction and a determination to follow where God was leading him. It is easy, and probably when sharing the story with various Sunday School classes, and even reading it as an adult, I have done this, to focus in on the courage and the victory and forget that he was human.
However, it also portrayed the bits that I think we are sometimes tempted to airbrush out. In the moments before he runs at Goliath he is asked why he is not fearful, and he acknowledges that he is terrified. Like Joshua before him, there is a sense of destiny, a sense of calling to this moment that requires him to hear God’s encouragement above all else. Isaiah 41:10 reminds us of the repeated instructions for God’s people in these kind of moments:
~ fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
There is a natural fear that comes, like any other emotion that comes. It is not wrong to feel the emotion, to acknowledge the emotion but the key is that the fear did not dictate for David, for Joshua, for many other courageous people what happens next. Courage, similar to bravery, can defined as:
~ a quality of mind and spirit that enables one to face and deal with situations of risk, pain, danger, or difficulty without withdrawing
It is not that there is an absence of fear but that fear is not in charge. The primary influence over the person’s actions is their convictions, or their determination, their willingness to face and overcome what their natural fear would have them do.
I was thinking about David facing this situation and determining to face the giant, because he felt the call of God in this moment, whatever that looked like. He was not happy that this Philistine was challenging “the armies of the living God”, so that not just Israel’s honour was at stake but that of God. I don’t know what impact being anointed king previously had had on him spiritually but certainly it was a seed planted within him that was growing. In that moment, his desire to make a stand for the name of God was stronger than his natural fear of this giant of a man. I was thinking about Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane having a similar moment with the reality of his natural fleshly desire to not go through the pain of the cross. He was real enough in his prayers before he was arrested to acknowledge he would prefer there to be a different plan if it was possible. The bible says he was sorrowful and troubled. I’m sure I might have expressed those emotions a whole lot more strongly if I had been contemplating the reality of the cross. Matthew 26:39 shows us how he was navigating those emotions at that moment:
And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
“If there is another way, if I can avoid the pain and anguish of this moment, if I don’t have to go through with what is going to be an excruciating time, I would really really prefer that … and yet, Father, I yield to your plan for this moment.” Even with all the understanding of the physical experience of the cross that we now have, the descriptions of what the “excruciating” event caused in the bodies of those who were crucified, so extreme that the word excruciating was invented to describe the event, we cannot comprehend the intensity, the cost of the whole thing for Jesus. Courage almost feels like too small a word. But to portray him as some kind of stoic, unfeeling, unemotional, completely fearless hero is to miss his humanity which he had chosen to embrace in order to accomplish his mission. The same is true of the heroes of the faith throughout the bible. We are encouraged by the testimony of their lives precisely because they show us that victory is possible IN our humanity, IN the reality of our weakness, our fear, our pain, our brokenness. Paul expounds on this in 2 Corinthians 12:9
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
However, if we never acknowledge the weakness, if we cover up the weakness, and pretend that we are strong, unflinching, fearless when that is not the truth, we give no opportunity for that strength to be manifest in our lives.
The conversation I had yesterday, before watching the episode about David, was around the difference between following a path of faith, of trusting God and declaring that God is bigger than whatever circumstance we are facing, and not feeling able to express the truth of the circumstances we are in, for fear of appearing defeated or being accused of lacking faith.
If we are in a season of grief and pain, or we are battling sickness and are very sick, or we are facing a difficult situation and cannot see the way through right now, pretending that all is well, that we are “fine” or even hiding the reality of what is going on, for fear of giving a “negative confession” or somehow empowering the enemy by voicing something out loud seems to me more like superstition than faith. I know people who do not even mention the word cancer, who will not acknowledge it and use euphemisms when talking about it almost as though naming it would give it more power.
I feel like the narrative around declarations and being careful around what we speak over our lives, which is not a wrong thought by the way, has led some of us to become so fearful of making a wrong declaration, or speaking negativity into our lives or the lives of those around us that it has silenced us, made us unable to be vulnerable, honest and real. I absolutely understand the conversations around changing our language to help us change our mindsets, for example there is a difference between the habit of talking about ‘my anxiety’, and saying ‘I feel anxious about…’. But I also think it is important that we have people in our lives where we can be open, honest, and real about what is going on. In John 8:32 Jesus tells us that
~ the truth will set us free
I know that Jesus is talking about the truth from his perspective being what sets us into true freedom, however, we also need to understand where we are in order to start moving. When I put my information into the sat nav to get directions to a destination, it asks me where I want to go and also where I am right now and plots a pathway to reach the destination. I have seen this with God as he takes me from where I am to freedom. There have been specific situations where God has started by asking, like he did with Adam and Eve in the garden in Genesis 3:9,
Where are you?
Sometimes this looks like him saying, ‘tell me how you are feeling’. As I sit, like I would with a trusted friend, and offload the reality of where I am, how I am feeling, no holds barred, I am reminded of what it says in Psalm 62:8
Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.
We are encouraged to do what David did. How often I have read bits of the psalms and pondered that it feels almost too raw, too real, to be in the bible but David, whom God called ‘a man after my heart’ (Acts 13:22), knew how to strengthen himself in God, and so we often see a process as he progresses through the psalm, where he ends in a place of renewed confidence. We are not to be fearful of or to hide those real and raw emotions but to bring them to God, to our them out to him. As I do this and enter into dialogue with the Father about those feelings, about the truth of a situation, he takes me through a process. He reveals truth, his truth. Places where my feelings, my thoughts are ugly and ungodly are gently challenged and I am able to forgive, to let go, to allow him to come and bring his healing, his cleansing to my heart. He brings his grace and capacity into the situation as I sit with him. The situation has not necessarily changed at all, but I have been changed, my perspective has been changed, I have been encouraged, strengthened and released from the heaviness of the emotions and thoughts and feelings I have been carrying.
Recently when I went through this process, I was shocked by the intensity of some of the emotions and thoughts I found myself expressing to him. I did not know how I was really feeling. Those thoughts and attitudes were hidden in the depths of my being somewhere, covered by a layer of superficiality, a layer of pretence and behaving like a “good Christian”, and years of not expressing the truth of how I really feel, not knowing how to acknowledge negative emotions healthily. Many of us have this habit, a fear of ‘negative emotions’, borne out of a desire to ‘keep the peace’ or to prefer others, or out of fear of rejection or a myriad of other reasons. I wonder if even the phrase negative emotions is helpful. What if we just described them as emotions? What if they they only became negative because of how we have unhealthily engaged with them. Psalm 51 tells us that God delights in, actually desires
~ truth in the innermost being
Psalm 139 ends with this beautiful prayer (verses 23-24), expressed here in the Passion translation
God, I invite your searching gaze into my heart. Examine me through and through; find out everything that may be hidden within me. Put me to the test and sift through all my anxious cares. See if there is any path of pain I’m walking on, and lead me back to your glorious, everlasting way—the path that brings me back to you.
What I have discovered is the freedom that this process brings. Far from my fears of getting stuck in ‘navel gazing’, when I sit with God and allow him to do this, it brings release, it brings freedom, it brings healing, it brings a grace to occupy that circumstance differently, leaning on his strength and his capacity which allows me to be much more grace-filled to those around me too.
So today, I believe God is inviting us afresh into a moment; he is saying, “where are you?” as a way of starting a process to bring us into greater freedom. He always has a destination of freedom, life, joy, peace, abundance in mind so, we can allow him to lead the way, resting assured that he will not leave us stuck, wallowing in the mire of our pain and difficult emotions but will lead us into victory in him. It is his victory, not ours, and so we don’t have to try and drum it up in our flesh, we can lean in on his strength, his overcoming. As I finish, I am reminded if this scripture from 2 Corinthians 2:14
But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.
When we acknowledge the reality of our weakness in the moment, that we cannot do this without him, he then gets all of the glory and honour because of what is evident of him in our lives, which is as it should be because it is true – we cannot do this without him.
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