Adria Howard Moore

It’s a real treat to watch the Independence Day fireworks display over New Jersey’s largest lake. As they light up the night sky and then disappear into the atmosphere as a loud bang echoes across the water putting an exclamation point on the end of the explosion, I feel small. However, I find it fascinating to see the videos of the same event taken by drones flying overhead. Although it’s of the same event on the same night, they look totally different because of their bird’s-eye view.

Someone once encouraged me to look at my situations from a different perspective. They suggested I try looking at them from God’s vantage point. This piqued my interest, as I wondered how you might do this. Then I thought about David. Do you think that’s how he saw Goliath? Let’s face it, David was a teenager, without any battle training and he was up against a seasoned and vicious soldier. Also, this man was large and strong. According to 1 Samuel 17:5, Goliath’s bronze armor alone weighed about 125 pounds. I can’t imagine that David weighed much more than that! No wonder the Philistine’s champion got angry when he saw who was going to challenge him. He probably felt like the Hebrews were mocking him by sending out a boy to fight him.

It’s estimated that David was shorter than this monster of a man by at least a foot, but possibly as much as 4 ½ feet! From this boy’s perspective he should have been very intimidated.

But he wasn’t. As a matter of fact, David ran toward Goliath. Why do you suppose he wasn’t afraid? I think it’s because Goliath didn’t look so threatening when David looked at him from God’s viewpoint.

It probably looked and sounded quite ridiculous when David told King Saul not to worry, that he would kill Goliath. I can almost picture the king trying to hide his smirk as he attempted to talk David out of fighting the warrior. Nevertheless, David insisted. Why?… because he knew Who was going to do the fighting.

David replied, “Your servant has been tending his father’s sheep, and whenever a lion or a bear came and carried off a lamb from the flock, I went after it, struck it down, and delivered the lamb from its mouth. If it reared up against me, I would grab it by its fur, strike it down, and kill it. Your servant has killed lions and bears; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.”
David added, “The LORD, who delivered me from the claws of the lion and the bear, will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” 1 Samuel 17:34-37

I wonder how drastically things would change if I looked at the Goliaths in my life through God’s eyes? David was emboldened by remembering how God had taken care of him while he tended sheep. I need to remind myself, too. As a believer of Jesus the Anointed One, I am:

His child, 1 John 3:1, John 1:2
Seated with Christ in the heavenly realms, Ephesians 2:6
More than a conqueror, Romans 8:37
Jesus’s friend, John 15:15
A new creation, 2 Corinthians 5:17

Oh, and so much more!

Dear Father, when I find myself standing toe-to-toe with a Goliath (illness, financial difficulty, disappointment) help me to look at it from Your vantage point.

A Bird's-eye View

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