Conquering Faith
(Overcomer Wu)

David had accomplished much from the human standpoint that seemed extraordinary: from killing a lion, a bear, defeating Goliath, to his successful escape of Saul's army hunting him down, and his winning numerous battles where his army was outnumbered by the enemies'. Yet we can attribute David's victory to his one simple but mighty act: his conquering faith in the Almighty God borne out of his love for God. Nothing was more important  to David than his loving relationship with God; thus even after most of his problems were resolved and he had  won victories over all his enemies, his one burden was to build a house for God; he was not concerned so much for his own affairs, his own comfort and pleasures, but he sought mainly to please God. How many of us can, at the pinnacle of our success, sought only to please God rather than lay back and enjoy our own lives? Furthermore, David also declared like very few Christians can honestly declare: "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord..." (Psa 27:4). David's love for God was the seed of his conquering faith in the Almighty God, for our "faith operates through love" (Gal 5:6b).

In 1st Samuel chapter 17... while still a young man, he faced with a seemingly insurmountable herculean problem: fighting Goliath. None of the champions of Israel could defeat Goliath, yet when faced with the trials David took on the challenge that no one else dared to face at that time, because he had a conquering faith in the God that he loved. The giant Goliath could have easily crushed David to a pulp, but David proclaimed his unwavering faith in God to defeat Goliath (1Sam 17:45-47). Of course we know that the Lord indeed delivered the head of Goliath into David's hand on a silver platter -- in a manner of speaking.

We may be facing a giant of a problem tantamount to a Goliath in our own lives. Feelings of doubt chew at your thoughts and lately you wonder how you will be able to face the challenge. Yet if we love the Lord our God above all else and give Him the preeminent position in our lives, we can rest assured that He will not abandon us in our times of trials as we placed our full faith in Him. Our well-meaning friends, relatives and even some saints may give us advises that instill doubts in us much like David's brothers did. Yet if he had listened to his brothers' doubting words, both he and God's people would have suffered defeat. Instead, he chose to not listen to the advises of man but put his faith and hope in our living God.

God wants us to live a victorious life. When fears, doubts, and circumstances of life seek to crush us under the weight of its burden and stress, we need to gather our slingshot of faith armed with stones as our ammunitions which symbolizes the Word of God and declare our conquering faith in Christ, we will surely gain a mighty victory through Him Whom we love most dearly. Keep in mind that the true nature of our battle is spiritual. God's enemies and our enemies has  but one goal, and that is to discourage us. In order to defeat and discourage us, Satan often sends many 'Goliaths' that seemed to wield an inexorable force to crush us like he did with God's people in the Old Testament. However, as long as we maintain  Christ as our First love and seek after God's desires and interests over our own, He will train us and make us a mighty warrior like David who had nothing to fear. Therefore, at the beginning of the same chapter where David declared that the one thing he sought after is to dwell in the house of the Lord in order to behold the beauty of the Lord, he also proclaimed with full faith that “The Lord is the Strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psa 27:1). May we all seek love the Lord our God will all our hearts, soul, mind and strength, then the rest of the problems, however great and ominous they may seemed, shall surely be taken care of by the Almighty God Who is also the lover of our souls.