David, approaching the Philistine (Revised)

I Samuel 17:37

The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.

O Lord, look at the manhood of Israel, cowering in the shelter of their tents, afraid to walk forth from them and face this descendant of the Kenites, those people before whom we have shrunk back in the lost days, the days of God's wrath and anger. And now they risk such a thing again! And for what, the physical safety of a few moments?

O Lord, may all who see me now, may all who hear of this story in the future, may all who look upon this moment, these great events, O Lord, may all of them see and estimate these things rightly! Lord, forbid that any should see me as the main actor here, that any should consider me the main element, or that in this my strength, my courage, yea, even my trust! would be glorified. O God, these things are yours, and if I have courage, if I have faith here and now, it did not originate in me.

Listen, O my heart, and I will tell you the ways of faith, the pathways that this courage has taken, hear and learn and be strengthened, both now for the trial, and whatever will come in the future. O Lord, speak in my words as I speak to myself, in this discipline of my self-analysis I find your peace, stilling my heart before you to wait, yes, Lord, even now as I walk towards the confrontation quiet my heart. Here is my very self poured into the mold of your words and ways, the affections of my heart going up in the discipline of your truth, returning to you as praise after passing through the mysteries of your cleansing presence. Your Spirit, taking up to you my praise, making it beautiful, beautiful, though it comes from a stained heart. This is a miracle, a mystery to be seen, contained in the hope of the promise, the shadow of the sprinkling that Aaron and his descendants perform. O Lord, hear my voice.

Listen, listen, O heart, and know the power of the Lord. Dominion is his. He reigns above the circle of the earth. His voice shakes the very desert, twisting the oaks, stripping the forest bare. His hand smooths out the seas, measures the span of the heavens above. This is declared, in every language, by the heavens themselves, the glory the speak of is the vastness of God, the aboveness of him who made such things, implying a power beyond them possessed by him, a power that makes the sun seem dim, the thunder soft, and the wilds of the seas calm. This trembling power, that simmers and seeps out of the edges of all things, is the glory of the creator displayed in his creation. Lord, you make yourself known here, to all men, with a clarity sufficient to make no man innocent, a clarity that makes every idol a mockery, a self-worship, a willful rebellion.

O Lord, this is the power of God, a power revealed most particularly to my people, this tribe of men chosen from among all men, freely, before action, as you once chose Jacob over Esau. We alone among all men possess this revelation, first in the glorious deeds of old, then in the true law which shows weakness, and finally in the words of the promise which hold out to us the hope of your presence, a renewal of the image of God in us, and the joys and delights of the fellowship once enjoyed in the garden.

O Lord, what glory is contained in these things! This word, O Mighty One, signifies the presence of your quickening Spirit in them, that which shines forth from the words of the Lord and brings alive, this quality which your saints can never praise enough, can never give thanks for enough, for it is that which brought them alive!

Stand, O heart, stand. Be quickened by the memory of his glory. If I now walk forth, it is in the courage of a revealed power, a revealed glory, with a sure and undeniable evaluation of the proportion of things, seen from the new eyes of his followers, not the dead and dying eyes of idols and those that worship them.

This is what I mean, listen, O heart, listen to these words. The man who comes against me is a man, this can be seen. But such a man! He is the splendor of all mankind, a champion of champions, in the flesh he has a mighty man, surpassingly strong, abundantly powerful, a man armed with all the contrivances and inventions of earthly wisdom, the strength of the earth girding him, and his hands powerful for battle. A mighty sword is in his right hand, a mighty spear in the other. He is all the world can muster against the people of God, the pinnacle of its power, the summit of its strength, a man astride the world, challenging the heavens, a fist raised up against them, a defiance to all that is invisible. With what power can you come against me? he says. I am the power, I am the ruler, I am the dominion, for none dare threaten me, none dare oppose me! And like fools, the people of God cower in their tents, even the anointed ruler of them, even Saul chosen by God, once filled with the power of his Holy Spirit, they also look upon this man, then look to themselves, and they shudder.

For shame! To judge this man by his own standard is to flee from his presence. This is the pagan measurement, to measure ourselves by ourselves, to see in the power of the earth real strength, when it itself is held in place only at the whim of its Maker. Laugh at such things, O heart! Be offended for the power of the one who reigns. Who is this man, that he defy the armies of the Living God!

O Lord, you live, you live, and in your hand are all things! My courage is no courage, but just an estimation of things. This man is powerful with the counterfeit courage of the world, which is false because it accounts for itself and nothing else. The same courage is displayed in these cowering men. But to see the light of the Lord is to know the trembling power that stands behind all power, the one who stirs the seas and draws the sun across the sky and shakes the earth at his will. Would Goliath challenge the seas themselves? Would he hurl his spear at the sun? Yet there is one greater than both of these, whom he defies with no fear! Such calculations are irrational at their heart, the willing shuttering of the mind to the fact of the situation, like a child who closes his eyes in fear and imagines that he has made his enemies disappear.

Scoff at them, O heart, scoff at the men who set themselves up against our God. O Lord, surely this is no glory unto me, that you have captured my heart in days long past, that you have given me eyes that see and perceive the glory which others shut out, that you demonstrated your power against the bear and the lion on my behalf. What can I claim for myself in this? What extraordinary thing do I have that all the people of God do not possess? That I have faith is no claim I can make for myself, for what we call faith is no more than the knowledge of invisible things joined with a determination to act upon them, that I can see his power and know that in this battle there can be but one victor.

O Lord, you are glorified in my obedience now, you and you alone, none of me. My heart is after yours, I am a man after your heart, our hearts going out to each other according to the condescension of your mysterious nature, the pathways unknown but hidden within the greater restoration, that future son of the woman who will crush our enemy's head, our great enemy who even now whispers his encouragements into my lesser enemy's ears, who blinds his eyes to the invisible realities, and perverts his reason so that his confidence rests misplaced in the sword, the spear, and the strength of his arm.

This is yours Lord, all of it, my courage, your battle, my heart, his rebellion, the stone I sling, the sword he wields, the sun on my back, the wind in my face, the ground pounding beneath my feet. To see this invisible ownership is the rational action of a quickened man, a living man, the life in me springing from the life in you, calling out to that which it recognizes, holding me in hand as I run, swiftly, towards the battlelines.

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I Samuel 17 is the story

Now, here is a post I am finally satisfied with. The last one I hated.

What do you think? Better or worse than the other?

Also, I need to credit Tim Keller with the phrase "counterfeit courage."