Appearance & Reality

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“Thou hast enlarged me…in distress” (Psalms 4:1).

David’s correct view of Goliath enlarged David while it shrank Goliath, whereas the incorrect view of Goliath held by Israel’s fearful armies enlarged Goliath while it shrank them.

Where the army saw a mountain, David saw a plain.

The more I look upon any problem confronting me, the bigger and more real the problem gets. The more I look upon God, the more resolutely I rely upon His Word instead of the problem, the smaller and more unreal the problem gets.

In Numbers 13:33, most of the men who returned from spying out the promised land were not only fearful of the giants in the land, but spread their fatalistic viewpoint among all the people of Israel: “And there we saw the giants…and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers…” But while the majority of spies saw themselves as helpless bugs to be squashed by giants, Joshua and Caleb saw themselves as the real giants who were well able to conquer and possess the land: a land whose “giants” were, in reality, mere bugs.

The spies who broadcast their magnified fear died of the plague: the natural outpicturing of their infectiously spreading their evil report among the multitude of people.

Whatever the size of the distress confronting me, however formidable its appearance, it will shrink in proportion to the degree of strength with which I cleave to God and His promises, and the more God will enlarge me in the face of it.

“… [H]uman opinions [have] not one feather’s weight in the scales of God” (Mis. 372).

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