Like so many giants which confront us, which keep us from doing the things we dream of doing, which tell us, A It can= t be done,@ before we even try, Goliath went unchallenged.

Like so many of the giants which confront us, Goliath didn= t win by strength of sword and spear, but by anxiety and fear.

Saul and his people sat in their tents, immobilized by their fears and their anxieties, immobilized by the very sight of this giant standing in their way.

They were immobilized by their fear of Goliath C not by anything the giant had done to them. Not one single soldier of the people of Israel had been defeated in battle by Goliath, because not one soldier of the people of Israel had overcome his fear long enough to fight Goliath. Not yet. They were immobilized and depressed not by anything he had down to them, but simply because he was there.

Up until this point the story of Saul recounts only great victories over the enemies of Israel, including the Philistines. But recently Saul had disobeyed God and now Saul knew he was out of favor with God C he no longer felt he had God= s protection in battle. Saul was not right with God and so he had lost his confidence in his abilities.

The real irony here is that the Israelites had the high ground.

I have stood in the Elah valley. I have seen the positions detailed at the start of this story regarding the camps of the two sides. Israel had the high ground. That is one reason Goliath keeps coming out and taunting them. Because the Philistines were not strong enough to attack the Israelite= s defensive position.

But since Saul had lost his confidence, his men had lost their confidence, and so they were just holding their defensive position, allowing the giant to mock them and God. They were too depressed and too afraid to do anything.

But not David.

Small and young though he was, he was brimming with confidence and faith.

God had protected him and given him the strength when he had battled the lions and bears that preyed on the sheep he watched over.

David was confident God would protect him now.

In fact, he was so confident he refused Saul= s armor offered for his protection.

Of course, the armor did not fit David, in fact, the tale grows humorous here, suggesting a ridiculous sight: little David playing warrior in a grown man= s armor, unable to move with it draped over him. Undoubtedly the helmet kept sliding down and covering his eyes so he could not see. No, David politely refused the armor and set out to fight the giant as he had always fought wild beasts C trusting in God and in the abilities God gave him.

I= m sure that someone standing nearby said: A You can= t do that. We= ve never done it that way before.@ They were partly right.

It never had been done that way. But it was about to be.

Saul was the past, Goliath was now, but David was the future.

New challenges required new resources and new tools to do a new job.

To wear Saul= s armor would have meant fighting Goliath on Goliath= s terms and David would have surely died had he tried that.

To face up to the giants that oppress and depress us calls for new ways of thinking. Most of the giants life puts in our path are not illusions C they are very real and really threatening.

But most of them will fall easier than they would like us to believe.

We just need to figure out some new ways of getting at them or around them, which of course calls for creative thinking and trust in God.

But what if we really can overcome giants?

Then we can find life, freedom, and our voice for speaking God= s truth.

Just as Sojourner Truth did. Sojourner Truth was born a slave in New York around 1797. Given the name Isabella Hardenbergh by her first owner, she served 29 years under four different masters. During her enslavement, she was partnered with a fellow slave and bore five children. With each child, the pain of enslavement intensified until, in a flash of insight, she realized that God was everywhere and in everything. What began as a whispered prayer to God crystallized as an understanding that she and her children deserved to be free.

In 1826, she ran away from her owners, taking only her youngest baby. Over time, she was able to buy freedom for them all.

One day, while on her hands and knees scrubbing a kitchen floor as a paid housekeeper, a message came to her: A I am no longer Isabella.@ It was time she stopped being a servant C paid oar not C to white folk. From that moment on she would only do the work of God. Soon afterward, her role as a speaker and reformer started. The more she spoke, the more her faith matured from an awareness of her own pain into an awareness that the system of slavery had to be abolished. She traveled the East and Midwest, voicing her belief that slaver was an abomination and not condoned by God. In 1850, she was asked to be the Massachusetts delegate at the first national Women= s Rights convention. At another meeting, she couldn= t remain silent when a minister maligned the cause of women= s rights: A That little man in black there, he says women can= t have as much rights as men > cause Christ wasn= t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with Him.@

If we can really overcome giants, then we WILL make a difference in our world. Wangari Maathai in Kenya is doing just that.

The first woman in East Africa to earn a doctorate in biological sciences, in the mid-seventies, during the early years of Daniel arap Moi= s presidency, she began the Green Belt Movement to counter the rampant deforestation resulting as politicians sold off the forests for cash or political favors. Maathai began to argue that until citizens, especially women, planted trees, the desert would continue to creep south. The government responded that illiterate women can= t plant trees, only official foresters can. She pushed; they resisted. So she started on her own. In 1977, Maathai planted seven trees to honor seven Kenyan women leaders. Those seven trees gave birth to the Green Belt Movement: 6,000 village nurseries, and more than 20 million trees. Yes, she proved the government foresters wrong and dramatically improved the environment. But more impressively, she changed the view of the women in the movement: they began to see their right to the forests and they began to stand up to the government and demand that the trees be protected.

This was not easy. Over the years, Maathai and her collaborators have been beaten by the police and jailed for their radical ideas of sustainable agriculture and public forests. One educator was arrested for simply teaching organic farming. But by planting trees, Maathai planted the seeds of a vibrant pro-democracy women= s movement in Kenya. In 2004 Wangari Maathai became the first environmentalist to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize. Just a few years before that, Kenya held national elections and President Moi, after nearly 25 years in office, was voted out. Under the new president, Wangari Maathai, who had been attacked and jailed for her beliefs by the former government, became deputy minister of the environment.

It is always God who wins the victory. As Paul told the Corinthians, God chooses what is weak int he world to shame the strong.

It is always thus in God= s working in this world.

God chooses a shepherd boy to defeat a giant. God chooses a fugitive Moses to defy a Pharaoh. God starts with just a handful of ordinary people to transform the earth. David, as long as he relied on God had might that could not be overcome by human strength.

A In God I trust without a fear. What can man do to me?@

That is the faith with which you and I can fearlessly live and through which we can overcome whatever giants stand in our way of serving God.