You Gotta Have Faith!

Wham (George Michael) couldn’t have sang it any better – You’ve got to have Faith. You won’t get anywhere without it. No, I’m not going all religious on you, but I will say those who have a strong Belief in God or other positive Entity, have a definite advantage. At the very least you need to have faith in yourself.

So, who hasn’t heard of the Biblical story about David and Goliath? I would say the majority have in one way or another. It’s often referred to when an individual, for example, takes on a huge corporation in a legal battle of some description.

Just in case you come from another galaxy far, far away or simply haven’t heard this classic tale, I’ll quickly relate it here. 

David was a young shepherd lad growing up in ancient Israel. At that time, they were at war, not unusually, with one of their neighbours, the Philistines. The king of Israel was called Saul, a people’s favourite as he had led them to many victories and they fought under the banner of Jehovah or Yahweh, their God. But this time round, it was proving difficult to rout these Philistines as they’d found a champion.

And what a champion! Went by the name of Goliath, was around three metres tall, apparently had six fingers on each hand, he was heavily armoured and he was smashing the Israelites to bits. It was a bit like being faced with a tank and all you had was a peashooter – no contest.

But Goliath apparently got a bit bored with all the fighting, probably wanted to get back to feasting and womanising, so he laid down a challenge. If Israel’s champion could defeat him, then the Philistines would concede defeat. However, if Goliath won, Israel would be enslaved by Philistia. In his eyes, it was a no-brainer because he was certain Israel didn’t have anyone in their ranks who would beat him.

He hadn’t reckoned with David though. He just happened to be at the Battle Front delivering food and other goodies to his older brothers who were part of Saul’s army. When David learned of the challenge and saw how afraid the soldiers were, he put himself forward as Israel’s champion. This obviously caused some amusement – a 15-year-old shepherd boy, with no military training, going up against a well-trained, fully armoured giant warrior?

However, David had previous. He had singlehandedly killed both a lion and a bear on two different occasions using just his slingshot. He claimed that God had strengthened him so he could protect his sheep and defeat the fierce animals.

Now it’s not explained in the Bible as to why King Saul even listened to David, never mind believed he was the best choice of champion, especially with so much at stake, but he agreed to letting David have his chance.

Possibly Saul saw no other way out and it was just a token effort, or it was the strength of David’s conviction, his Faith in his God, that was the convincing factor. Either way, David did defeat Goliath with a slingshot that sent a pebble between his eyes and then David finished him off by beheading him.

As I said earlier that story is used or referred to struggles of epic proportions such as an individual going up against a huge opposition – not always successful, I might add, but successful enough to be significant. Currently here in UK there’s an almighty battle going on between hundreds of Sub-Post Masters and the Giant Royal Mail due to a decades long computer programme failing which has cased imprisonment, bankruptcy and even suicide. It’s finally getting the attention it deserves and Justice is starting to prevail with convictions being quashed and compensation payouts.  

The question to be asked regarding the defeat of Goliath is, why did David win? He was seriously out of his depth, no military experience, only a lad of about 15 and apparently, all but defenceless. It was his Faith. His faith in both his God and in himself. He wholeheartedly, 100%, believed he could defeat Goliath and ‘saw’ him lying dead at his feet. He believed his God would provide both the strength and the means to achieve this and, in his opinion, that’s exactly what happened.

It doesn’t matter whether you are religious or not, Faith is still something you need to get you through the tough times, the relapses, the ridicule, the adversity, to keep you going when others around you have given up on you.

If your Faith is coupled with a strong belief (religious or otherwise) then, in my book, that’s the equivalent of having a two-edged sword or, to keep it in the David perspective, the best slingshot ever. Of course, it’s only useful if you take action and use it.

Go out there and conquer those Giants!

Namaste,

Jeremy