Five Stones.

He picked up five stones when one was enough. With one stone David brought down the Raphiam, the giant. But he held four more, one for each of Goliath’s four brothers. David went in to battle prepared. If Goliath’s brothers had shown their faces that day, his victory was secured— not by those four weights resting in the pouch at his side, but by God. My victory is equally secured because of Christ’s victory against sin and death and ultimately pain. But I need faith for the battle. Battle begs me to see that my faith: small, even stone-sized, is enough to defeat giants.

There have been hardships lately. I am not alone in this. And just when I hit the brink of exhaustion: raising, teaching, discipling, and learning the hearts and thoughts of my four children, decision-making, big decision-making (a husband immersed in engineering classes, and for the semester non-existent…) Hardship happens, more hardship happens, stress happens, stomach flu happens, then seizures happen.

I realize that I’ve gone into these battles with one stone, and I needed five, need to gather more. 

David fought the Rapha, the giant, the shades of the earth. These spirits are called the sons of God. (Genesis 6:4) Yet my Jesus is called by demons themselves as the only begotten son. With His word alone, a legion of demons is cast out of a man.

¹⁰ For He healed many, so that as many as had afflictions pressed about Him to touch Him. ¹¹ And the unclean spirits, whenever they saw Him, fell down before Him and cried out, saying, “You are the Son of God.” ¹² But He sternly warned them that they should not make Him known… (Mark 3)

And so it isn’t the size of the rocks I hold— it’s the weight of them. And these rocks of faith are just a chip of the Rock: the Alpha and Omega. And to the giant of this day, I have a stone to throw. For I say as David, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty…” (1 Samuel 17)

This name, The LORD Almighty, that is where the power lies. The solution is never more anything of me. The solution is always more of Him. 

²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 5)

So when my youngest daughter is crying of a toothache, which is in fact a cavity (I checked), and I’m on the phone with the dentist, and another daughter starts screaming because a younger brother has just smooshed her new snail as she was rescuing it from his dumping a whole container of brand new fish food in the tank, and the husband is moaning from the stomach flu, and now my two year old is screaming too, because he is being taken away from the smooshed snail—and the lady on the line at the dentist is still asking for birth date and address— and had this not been a dental emergency I could of hung up…in these moments, I call for the name of the LORD Almighty, and I reach for faith. And when I show up at 2:30 today and see the receptionist who heard all the kuffaful, probly wonders how great a homeschool mom I could possibly be with my parental dental failure and chaos, and my two year old is likely to give evidence to the assumption, again, I will call on the name of the LORD Almighty.

More of Him. More stones.

Victory.

Together in Grace,

Amy

 

My love sonnet from Him today: a sweet-half numb smile from my girl— the strength He gave both of us to face the giant of this day.