In today's first reading, 1 Sam 17: 32-33, 37, 40-51, David goes to Saul, proposing that he go and fight Goliath. Saul is initially appalled. "You can't do that. You are merely a youth; Goliath "has been a warrior since his youth." In other words, Saul belittles David, puts him down, and discourages him strongly! David does not back down. "The Lord, who delivered me from the claws of the lion and the bear, will also keep me safe from the clutches of this Philistine."
If you and I, in the face of opposition from others, are relying only upon ourselves, arrogantly believing in our strength and have not gone to the Lord, knowing that only in God will we be successful in overcoming "Goliath" situations that we encounter, we are likely to crumble both under others' disbelief in us and in handling difficulties beyond our native strength. It is in God, with God and through God that we are strong and no other way! In it is humility, not pride, that we are armed with grace!
Jesus, whose aim here on earth was "to do not [His] own will, but the will of him who sent [Him]", tells us in John's Gospel that He "can do nothing by myself" (John 5:30). Relying on His Father, one with His Father, Jesus confidently went about His Father's work. In today's Gospel, Mark 3: 1-6, Jesus enters the synagogue and is met by scheming Pharisees, who look upon Jesus with the same contempt that Goliath looked upon David. Strong in the Father, Jesus calls up the man with a withered hand and, in the front of those plotting to kill him, heals the man of his disability.
How strong is your faith? my faith? What happens to me/you when we face opposition, when people treat us with contempt? Do we continue to carry out the command we know is coming to us from the Father, from God, the Rock of our Salvation? If we believe that that Rock will destroy any "Goliath" that threatens us, we shall be unafraid to do what God is calling us to do!
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