I suffer from anxiety. Not all the time but more than I certainly care to admit. I know that many of you do too.

Recently, I was encouraged by a passage of scripture and I want to share it with you because it helped me feel less guilty about my shortcoming. I was strengthened by it. May you be strengthened too.

It came from the David’s battle with Goliath, the Philistine giant well known to most of even the non-churched world. The story is told in 1Samuel chapter 17–AND IT REALLY HAPPENED! Here’s a small portion of it.

1 Sam 17:34-37  But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”

Wow! Remember that David was a young man at this time, probably not even twenty. Yet at some time even earlier in his youth he had defeated a lion and a bear even “when they turned on him.” He didn’t have a 30-06 high power rifle. He didn’t even have a handgun. He had a slingshot at best.

Why was David so confident that he could defeat in battle this giant soldier, trained in the art of killing? Because he had experienced God helping him before! David recalled these past victories over the lion and the bear and used them to give strength and courage for this battle.

Do what my Mental Health Counselor (daughter) encourages me to do. Write down where I see God giving me victory so that I can train my mind to not doubt but to have faith. God has helped me defeat my own lions and bears, so to speak, in the past. Use those victories to claim victory today.