What is your Giant

7‑minute read · June 21, 2026

What does it mean to be a man?

I preached on that question this Father's Day - and I'll be honest, I preached it from about as far from home as a man can get. I'm writing to you as a U.S. Army chaplain, currently deployed, where the heat feels like a giant hairdryer and home feels like another planet. And even out here, surrounded by men who carry weapons for a living, that question will not leave me alone. What is a man supposed to be?

Our culture cannot agree. One voice says masculinity itself is the problem. Another says it means dominance, toughness, winning at any cost. If you have ever felt the pull of both - wanting to be strong without becoming a jerk, wanting to step up without knowing where the line is - then this is for you. Because the Bible is not silent on this, and the answer it gives is better than anything the internet is shouting.

So let me take you to the most famous underdog story ever told: David and Goliath, in 1 Samuel 17:25-49. Israel's army is frozen. A nine-foot Philistine has taunted them for forty days. The king will not fight. The soldiers will not move. And then a teenage shepherd shows up with lunch for his brothers, hears the giant, and asks the one question nobody else will ask.

"You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied… For the battle is the LORD's, and he will give you into our hand."

- 1 Samuel 17:45-47

Here is what I want you to see. There are three men in that valley - a giant, a king, and a shepherd - and only one of them understands what real manhood looks like. Hold each of them up to a single sentence, the sentence I want you to carry out of this story: biblical masculinity is strength surrendered to God for His glory and the good of others.

The strong man who was still weak

Everything about Goliath screams look at me. His height. His armor. A spear tip that weighs fifteen pounds - imagine throwing a bowling ball on the end of a stick. He is terrifying. But his problem was never his size. His problem was his pride. His strength existed for one thing: his own glory.

That is what the Bible would call toxic masculinity. And let me be careful here, because our culture loves to treat strength itself as the villain. It is not. Goliath's sin was not that he was strong. It was that his strength answered to no one. He used it to intimidate, to dominate, to make a name for himself.

So let me say something to the men reading this, and I mean it: the strongest man in the room is not necessarily the godliest man in the room. A man can bench four hundred pounds and be spiritually weak. He can run a company and still fail to lead his own family. He can win every argument and be losing, quietly, to his own sin. Goliath had strength but no submission - and strength without submission always ends the same way. In destruction.

What this means for you

Hear me: the Gospel does not ask you to become less of a man. It asks you to hand your strength to a King. Your drive, your gifts, your competitiveness, your influence - none of that is the problem. The only question is whose name it serves. So take an honest look this week at where your strength actually points. At your glory? Or at God's, and the good of the people right in front of you?

The capable man who did nothing

The second man is easy to miss, because he is doing absolutely nothing. King Saul was the tallest man in Israel with the most battlefield experience. He was the one man who should have stepped forward. And for forty days, he sits there.

Why? The fear of man instead of the fear of God. Somewhere along the way Saul's whole life became about protecting Saul - his reputation, his comfort, his position. Proverbs says the fear of man is a snare, and Saul was caught in it. And here is what I have learned, both in ministry and in uniform: the greatest threat to manhood today is usually not aggression. It is passivity.

It is the man who knows what he should do and simply will not do it. He waits. He avoids responsibility. He stays silent. He is always hoping somebody else will go first. Somebody else to pray. Somebody else to lead. Somebody else to have the hard conversation, disciple the kids, fix the marriage, step up. And while he waits, the giant keeps talking and the king keeps sitting.

Passive is not the same as peaceful

A lot of men confuse passivity with gentleness, or with "keeping the peace." It is not. Saul's silence did not protect his people - it abandoned them. Biblical manhood does not go looking for fights, but it does not run from them either. So name the thing you have been avoiding - the call you keep not making, the leadership you keep handing off - and take one step toward it. Courage is rarely one dramatic moment. Most of the time it is just the next right thing you have been putting off.

The shepherd who was ready

When David finally steps forward, he sees the exact same giant everyone else sees. The difference is never what David sees. The difference is what David believes. While the whole army measures Goliath against themselves and despairs, David measures Goliath against God and is not impressed.

"The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine."

- 1 Samuel 17:37

And notice where that confidence was forged. Most people think David was prepared in the valley. He was not. He was prepared in the pasture. Out in a field, alone, a lion came, and then a bear, and David fought them off to rescue one lamb. Nobody saw it. Nobody clapped. Nobody posted it. But God was shaping him in the ordinary, unwitnessed moments of an ordinary job. The giant fell in public because David had been faithful in private.

The process nobody wants

We live in a world that wants the platform without the preparation. Everybody wants the trophy; nobody wants the training. The World Cup is on right now, and when somebody asked Lionel Messi what it felt like to become an overnight success after he came to Miami, he said it took him seventeen years and a hundred and fourteen days. Championships are won long before the stadium lights ever come on. So if you are in some unglamorous, unnoticed season right now - the early mornings, the long commute, the diapers, the quiet obedience nobody claps for - let me tell you as plainly as I can: God is not wasting it. He does His most important work in the pasture, not the valley. Be faithful in the small thing today. Especially the part no one will ever see.

You are not David - and that is the good news

Now here is the twist, and it is the most important thing I will say. We all want to be David - the hero, the giant-slayer, the one God uses to save the day. Sign me up. But if I am honest with you, that is not me. And it is probably not you either. We are much more like Israel: afraid, outmatched, unable to save ourselves, hiding behind the battle line - until a champion steps forward in our place.

Because Jesus is the greater David. David defeated a giant; Jesus defeated sin. David defeated a warrior; Jesus defeated death itself. David won a victory and shared it with Israel; Jesus won the victory and shares it with everyone who trusts Him. The hope of Christianity has never been that you become David. It is that Jesus becomes your Savior. And that changes how you walk into every fight you have left. A man who knows the outcome already belongs to God does not have to inch forward in fear. He can move.

Run toward your giant

So let me ask you the question I left my church with this Sunday: what is your giant? Because most giants do not live in valleys. They live in our homes, our marriages, our parenting, our habits, our fears, and our excuses. I think you already know what yours is. Honestly, I think the Holy Spirit has probably been naming it for you while you have been reading this.

Look at what David does at the climax of the story: he runs toward the battle line. He does not walk. He does not hesitate. He does not overthink it or wait for a better moment or ask for one more sign. He runs - because faith moves, and fear hesitates. Maybe your giant is leading your family spiritually for the first time. Maybe it is reconciling a relationship you have let break. Maybe it is asking for forgiveness, or putting down a habit that has quietly been running your life - or surrendering to Jesus for the very first time. Whatever it is, the call is the same. Stop waiting, and run at it. Not because you are strong enough, but because the battle belongs to the Lord.

And do not run alone. I have spent my whole life around men, in the church and in the field, and I have never once seen a man go the distance by himself. So get a few people around you who will know your giant by name. Find a community group at Christchurch Miami and let them walk this week with you. You can find one here, and if you are nearby, come stand with us on a Sunday at 11 AM. You do not have to have it all together to come - the Bible is not mainly a book about great men doing great things for God. It is a book about a great God showing mercy to ordinary, broken men. I am one of them. So name your giant, take the next step, and run.

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