God and Giant Problems
I'm an engineer, which explains why I'm not quite normal. Engineers ask strange questions and want to know why things work, or don't work. Here's a free tip: if you are a young lady and are interested in a guy who aspires to be an engineer, RUN! Run the other way. It can't possibly work out. Engineers are not normal*.
So, when I read the Bible, I tend to ask weird questions. When I read in Gen. 1:2 that the spirit of God moved I want to know how fast did he move? When I read that God formed all the animals male and female I wonder, why did he only create Adam, and left Eve as an afterthought? When I read in the New Testament that Christ will return in the sky and every eye will see him, I wonder how people on the opposite side of the earth will see him? And when I read in Luke 21:28 that we are to look up, I wonder, where is "up" on a spherical globe?
In Exodus 10:22 we read that darkness covered all of Egypt during one of the plagues. Was that due to a dense cloud cover or did the earth stop spinning, leaving Egypt in darkness while the other side of the earth had extended day light for three days? And if the earth stopped spinning then, due to the reduced centrifugal force, each adult (at the equator) would have increased in weight by about 1/2 a pound.
I tend to believe that every word in Scripture was put there for a meaning. For example, when I read that David picked up five stones in order to kill Goliath, I wonder, why five? It doesn't say he picked up a stone, or some stones. It says specifically five. Why? Well, perhaps David was a poor shot, and he thought he might miss four times before he finally hit Goliath. Or, and this makes more sense, Goliath was a big guy so it might take more than one stone to kill him. Let's take five stones just to be sure. But, no, there is no answer given. David slings one stone, kills Goliath, and that's the end of the story.
While we are left wondering about the remaining four stones, David goes on to live an exciting life. He is hunted by king Saul, eventually is anointed king in Saul's place, has many victories and a few failures. He writes some magnificent psalms that show his love and communion with God, even in times of distress and failure.
Not until 2 Samuel 21, when king David is an old man, do we read again about Goliath. Verse 17 tells us that Abishai the son of Zeruiah killed one "of the sons of the giant". In verse 18 we read that Sibbechai the Hushathite killed another son of the giant. Then in verse 19 Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim "slew the brother of Goliath". Finally, in verse 21 we are told that Jonathan the son of Shimeah the brother of David killed another giant. Verse 22 then says, "These four were born to the giant in Gath, and fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants." Logically, if one of them was the brother of Goliath and all four were born to the giant, then there were five brothers, all giants. (Other translations call them descendents, rather than sons, of the giant. In either case, sons or descendents, there were still five giants.)
What's the point, what can we learn from this? It appears that when David went out to face Goliath, he was aware of the other four and picked up five stones, intending to dispatch them all. He was trusting in God to deliver all five of them. But it didn't happen that way. It took many years, they were defeated in other ways, and God used other people to accomplish it. But in the end, God delivered the victory.
We often experience the same, not killing giants, but trusting God to deliver in a way that we think is expedient. We get disappointed when it appears that God has not followed our well-conceived plans. But God does not always follow our timetable. Often, he will provide much later than we expect. And he may not even accomplish his will the way we expected. He may use other means. And often he uses other people, people we had no knowledge of. But we can trust that God will accomplish his will in the end. A few giants are not a problem for him.
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* I have, however, assured my children that I am normal, in fact, the epitome of normality. "Normal" is defined at being the same as expected, and I always act the way I act. That's normal for me.