"Just a Little Bit" - I Samuel 17:32-49 - June 22, 2003

One of my students at Edison Community College is a Gerontology major at Bowling Green. She has been trying for three years to enroll in the Death and Dying course but it is always full. Her advisor suggested she try Edison this summer. The course is being offered and I am the instructor.

The young woman told the rest of the class that pursuing a degree can be overwhelming at times. There are so many obstacles; courses, finances, scheduling classes, etc. Edison is only fifteen minutes from her home. The school just happened to schedule the course she needed which will fulfill her requirement at Bowling Green.

By taking advantage of a local resource her pursuit of an education is now not so overwhelming. This one class will give her more flexibility and enable her to continue her education. A single resource, which she had no idea existed until a few weeks ago, is making a big difference in her life.

All of us have obstacles in our lives and life can be very overwhelming at times. Pursuing a career, raising a family, paying the bills, dealing with relationships or overcoming health problems are tremendous obstacles for us to overcome. Facing gigantic problems makes us feel hopeless. There are times when it just seems impossible to remove them from our lives.

David faced the giant, Goliath. He was an enormous man, tall , fierce and strong. He wore an armor of steel and the people of Israel were terrorized by him. Like all neighboring nations, Goliath represented a major threat to the small, Hebrew nation.

David was not Superman and he was no match for Goliath. But, he had a strong faith and believed that God was with him. He was a shepherd but was skillful in slinging the sling shot. He killed Goliath with a small stone which struck him in the forehead. One little stone, from a single man of faith brought down the evil giant.

When we face the giants of our lives we often feel helpless. We therefore say to ourselves, "What’s the use, there is no way to overcome such great odds." We live under the allusion that we need force or might to eliminate the giant problems from our lives. What the story of David illustrates is that we only need a single talent to make a difference. Like my student who took advantage of a single resource to move her forward in education, David used his solo talent to destroy the great giant of his day.

Sometimes we exaggerate the giants in our lives as we let fear consume us. Other times life’s giants are very real. For example; Nelson Mandela, the leader of the African National Congress, worked to eliminate apartheid from his native country. Because of his protests he was imprisoned for twenty years, separated from his loved ones. But, he never lost his dedication to the cause and never lost his faith.

While in prison, Mandela took to gardening. He got permission form one of the prison authorities to start a vegetable garden in the courtyard. They refused him for years, but he persisted. Eventually they relented and he was able to cut out a narrow patch of ground near the prison wall. To get plants to grow he had to remove many rocks. The authorities supplied him with seeds. The harvests were poor at first but in time they improved. Mandela often gave the warden and other prison guards his best tomatoes and onions. In another prison, previous to this one, Mandela had no space for a garden so he ordered books and studied up on the subject. He learned how to use different soils and fertilizers and which plants grew in what conditions.

What Mandela learned through that experience was that a leader must tend to his garden. Like a gardener, a leader must take responsibility for what he cultivates. He tends to his work, trying to repel his enemies, preserving what he can and eliminating those areas in which he can’t succeed. A garden was one of the few things in prison a prisoner can control. To plant a seed, watch it grow, tend to it and then harvest it, offered a simple but enduring satisfaction. It gave him a sense of being the custodian of a small patch of earth which offered a small taste of freedom.
(from Chicken Soup for the Gardener’s Soul)

All too often we think we have to be Superman to overcome our problems. David eliminated the giant by being himself. He was a shepherd, a servant of God, who had a particular talent and his single talent made a huge difference.

The only way to tackle the giants of our lives is to take small, single steps of faith. Those steps give us the courage and confidence to continue. We don’t have to use force or might to succeed. In Matthew (17:20), Jesus said, "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, will say to this mountain, ‘move, hence to yonder place’ and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you."

Dr. Keith Wagner, St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Sidney, Ohio