Louie Giglio pretty much nailed it with this book! The book reads like a story but has the power of a devotion. It’s a little different perspective on the story of David and Goliath in the Bible. If you’re not familiar with the story of David and Goliath then I highly recommend reading it! But if you’re not into that whole bible reading thing, you don’t really need to know the story to get something out of this book. Here’s a quick recap of the Bible account.

Imagine a young boy, around the age of 12-13. He’s out in the field watching the family’s sheep. Nothing all that extraordinary about that, right? Well the rest of the family is fighting a war against the evil nation that’s trying to take over. You see David is the son of a powerful family. His family is large and well respected. His brothers are in the army and all are willing (and of the right size) to fight this significant battle. Well young David, is kind of puny. Actually he’s not a warrior. He’s a shepherd. He’s not a weakling but definitely is at a size advantage! The enemies are even more intimidating than you might imagine. The undefeated prize warrior is called Goliath. He’s a giant of a man…literally!

Well no one wants to fight Goliath. He’s one scary dude! But David stops in to drop off some lunch for his brothers because he knows they’re going to be out there for a while. The story ends with David volunteering to fight this giant. The kind forces him to wear some armor but it’s just too massive, so David decides to fight Goliath alone. He grabs 5 smooth stones and his trusty slingshot. Approaches the battle field. Winds up and WHAAAM! Down goes Goliath!

Now this is where things get interesting. In church-topia we tend to glamorize this story a bit. We try to see with which of the characters we best identify and undoubtedly we pick David! We want to identify with the humble hero. We want to be the giant slayers! We want to be the ones who swoop in to save the day! But alas we are not Goliath! Nope. Not a chance!

This is where Giglio turns it up a notch. He pretty much puts Christians in our places by reminding us of our role. And heroes…we’re not! David in the story of this giant battle is really a little foreshadow of Jesus. David slays a giant named Goliath with a single stone. But Jesus slays another giant called death, well actually he takes on many of them. And every giant Jesus faces, he kills. You see Giglio paints our fears as giants. And the more we try to fight these giants on our own, the more we’re like young David swimming in the king’s armor! No stone we pick up can take down our fears. Our inadequacies in life won’t come down because we yell at them or because we workout or because we become rich and famous. These giants have one stone that can bring them down and it’s oddly shaped like the cross.

This book is a must read! Take a few days and find a quiet spot and eat this one up. As you do look at your life and try to determine what your giants might be. What massive and life challenging monsters do you have that haunt you? These are your giants and they must die.