Contemplative Bible Reading

1 Samuel 17:46 (New Living Translation)

46 Today the Lord will conquer you, and I will kill you and cut off your head. And then I will give the dead bodies of your men to the birds and wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel!

This is from the history of David and Goliath. Goliath is the “you” in these sentences. Note the order of Goliath’s demise:

• The Lord will conquer Goliath
• David will kill Goliath

David killing Goliath comes after the Lord conquering Goliath. David performed the physical act of cutting off the head of a fallen man. This occurs after God conquers the man’s spirit. Goliath was doomed because God said so. The rest was a formality. The rest could be performed by a teenager.

Perhaps this is the way many occurrences occur today: God does the miracle while I just show up and stand there. The power is God’s. Still, I have a part to play—I have to show up and stand there. God gives me that ability. I have to choose to use the God-given ability.

Why not just let God do both parts? What good is there in that? We could have seen Goliath drop dead on the battlefield without any human doing anything. What good is there in that? “God moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform,” so says a poet. A big part of those mysterious ways is God has someone like David or me stand there and do something simple after God does the miracle.