Character: Man with a lame leg, dressed a little like a shepherd and having a walking stick. He’ll be telling the story from the vantage point of an observer to everything that was going on with David and Goliath
Thanks _____ for telling the first part of my story. There always seemed to be something special about David. I didn’t hear about that part until much later, but that just proves what we all knew anyway.
You’ll have to pardon me while I make my way up here. I’ve got a bum leg from fighting in David’s armies. But I don’t complain to much, I still get around pretty good, and if this is the worst thing that happened to me, that’s okay.
You know, that was a crazy day when David first showed up to check on his brothers. We’d been marching out to that same hill in the Oak Valley for weeks on end. We’d get up on one hill of the valley, and the Philistines would get up on the other, and we’d stare at each other.
I remember that first time Goliath showed up. There we were, lined up across from one another when the middle of the Philistine line just seemed to part, like Moses did to the red sea. And out walks this giant of a man! There he was, 10 feet tall, wearing armor that had to weigh at least 120 pounds. How many of you out there weigh about that much, or less? Yep, he was wearing at least one of you! And it was shining in the son, and nearly blinded us. He had a massive sword, and this spear that looked like a fence post. And it didn’t have any ol’ tip on it either. It was so big it looked like the just strapped a regular sword to the end of it for a tip!
I don’t have to tell you, but we were scared. Here this giant of a man is, and he’s staring us down. And not just one or two of us, but the whole army! Then he looks at us, and smiles….and he says, we don’t need to fight this out in a battle, why don’t we settle this one on one. Me against whichever one of you is man enough to face me. Winner takes all. That is, unless you all are a bunch of girly men. I don’t have to tell you all, what happened next. But he was scary enough that I almost thought about putting a dress on and running away.
Well, this went on, day after day, week after week. We’d get up every day, line up on that same blasted hill. Goliath would come out and call us girly men, the philistines would all laugh at us and tell us to go back to our mothers. And then we’d turn around and go back to our camp. King Saul, would be back in his tent with his “advisors” trying to figure out what was going on.
It was on about the 40th day of all this, 40TH DAY!!!!!! That David showed up. Hehehehe, and what a day it was. His old man Jesse sent him up to the army to take some food to his brothers, and some stuff up to the commanders. I tell, we were real appreciative of the food. I was friends with Eliab, Abinadab, Shammah (sometimes we just called ’em Larry, Moe, and Curly). Well, they weren’t around when David showed up ’cause we were lining up on that stupid hill again. David sees what we’re doing, gets real excited, drops all his stuff off with a sentry and runs to the front line. He ends up finding me and some of the other guys, and he starts asking questions a mile a minute about what’s going on.
Well, we couldn’t let the little guy down (and he was little, he was just a teenager at the time) He probably weighed about as much as Goliath’s armor. So we started telling him about Goliath’s challenge, and telling him about what the reward would be for whoever it was that took Goliath down. Their family would have it made, and whoever it was would probably get to marry one of Saul’s daughters.
But this was when things began to change. We were all scared and trying to hide our fear behind some bravado, but David, David started getting angry, and he started to go off. Who does this Goliath think he is! This idiotic Philistine! He’s taunting God’s armies! And you could feel the power radiating off of him, you could feel some of the hope returning.
About this time Eliab makes his way over to me, and he starts to berate David. We tried to step in for David, but Eliab wouldn’t let us. Eliab wanted to know what he was doing here and who was back with the sheep at home. The funny thing was that David just kind of blew him off. Then David started working the crowd, going around to different groups of guys asking them the same question, and giving them the same answer, with the same intensity that he gave it to us. You could feel the energy building. This quiet intensity started making its way through the army, so much so that it even made it back to Saul!
Saul called for David, and wanted to know what in the world was going on. We know what was going on ’cause me and some of the other guys, and the three stooges known as David’s brothers snuck up to Saul’s tent to listen to what the King was saying to him. David comes up to Saul and says, “Master, don’t give up hope! I’m ready to go and fight this Philistine.” Saul looks at him with kind of a look of stunned disbelief, “You just a little pipsqueak, you can’t go after Goliath”
That was when we could feel the energy building again. David looks at him, and in that moment, you couldn’t tell who was the king and who was the boy. David says to him, “I’ve been a shepherd tending sheep for my father, and if a lion or a bear came after one of my sheep, I’d go after it and get the lamb back.” And now he was on a roll, “and if it turned on me, I’d grab it by the throat, wring is scrawny little neck, and kill it. Lion or bear, I didn’t care, I’d kill it, and I’ll do the same to that Philistine pig who thinks he can taunt the armies of God!”
It was all we could do to keep from shouting and getting caught for spying on the king. We did send a couple of guys back to tell everyone else what was going on though. But David kept going, “God who delivered me from the teeth of the lion and the claws of the bear will deliver me from this Philistine!”
And now, Saul was a believer too. He looks at David and says, “Go, and God help you!” Then he gives David the Kings armor to wear in his fight. For a moment we almost lost hope. When David got it all on he looked like a little kid playing dress up in his daddy’s clothes. But David, took it off. He said I can’t wear this, I’m not used to it, and it doesn’t fit. Instead, he took his shepherd’s staff, picked up five rocks, and put them in his pocket next to his sling.
At this point he begins to make his way towards Goliath. And all of us start following him. Goliath takes one look at him and starts to laugh. He looks at our army and says, “what am I, some sort of little dog, that you send a boy after me with a rolled up newspaper?” David answered him, and he seemed to grow right in front of our eyes, “You come at me with sword, and spear, and battle-ax. Hmm. I come at you in the name of God almighty! The God of Israel’s troops that you’re mocking. Today, God is handing you over to me. I’m about to kill you, cut off your head and leave you out for the animals, and everyone will know that there is a great God in Israel! They’ll know that God doesn’t save by sword and spear, but that he’s handing you to us on a platter!”
Well, Goliath didn’t like that. He starts coming at David. David takes a rock out of his pocket, puts it in his sling, and starts winding it up. When Goliath was about half way to him, he let it go! And it hit Goliath right in the middle of his forehead, and killed him.
There was a moment of silence as everyone tried to figure out what just happened. Then both sides started yelling. We were cheering and started running after the Philistines, and the Philistines started to run for their lives.
That was a great day. We thought we were done for, because none of us could take on Goliath. But all it took was a small boy who believed, who had faith. If David could do something like that with faith, just imagine what we could do. That’s my challenge for all of you out there. With God, all things are possible. No matter what the odds, God overcomes it all. Amen.
Stories from the Other Side 