1 Samuel 17:47 teaches that the Lord does not depend on weapons to fulfill his plans—he works without regard to human means!

This verse is the antithesis to that famous pseudo Bible verse that teaches God helps those who help themselves. My mother was fond of quoting this statement though we never attended church while I was a child.

While the Bible certainly commands work and condemns laziness it promotes faith and trust in God as the means to please Him. God is not far off, neither has He wrung His hands of human activity so He takes no delight in our workings without Him regardless of how noble we think our efforts.

The Bible teaches the opposite of human nature: God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, He uses the foolish to confound the wise, He uses the poor to shame the rich and He uses the weak to overcome the strong.

In this particular case a boy defeated a giant not because he was faster, stronger or better equipped but because God’s purposes were on the line and only a boy was willing enough to trust God to see Him create victory.

Faith in God is not inactivity while passively waiting for God to show up with an angelic host of big guys. Faith is doing the will and work of God realizing that unless God shows up and proves Himself strong we will utterly fail. Faith believes and thus acts in victory because it trusts God to see us through.

God is not interested in working with those who have all the strength, wisdom or money to accomplish His purposes for then we wouldn’t need Him. When we use our own strength, wisdom and money to do God’s work we tend to think God needs us!

Faith in God is obeying Him knowing that what He is asking cant be supplied by our own resources but must come from Him to meet the need. True, this coming from Him almost always involves other people being part of the solution.

God works through people with faith to accomplish His purposes but only as each one does their part so that we learn to work together while depending on our Father.