In our town we get a weekly paper.  Once upon a time they used to bring it to our door or at least lay it on our porch.  Now they just throw it out at the end of our driveway.  That’s okay because I can sure use the exercise but when it’s snowing or raining outside it makes for one messy paper.

            I used to be a paperboy when I was younger.  I remember one incident with a German shepherd.  It was at one of the last deliveries on my route and was just down the highway a mile or so out of town.  I had ridden my bike and as was my habit in those days, parked it at the end of my customer’s driveway and was in the process of walking the paper to their door when I looked at the house next door and spotted the big dog.  He was not chained and when he saw me looking at him he began to growl.  I knew that I was in trouble.  Not sure of what to do I froze in my tracks.  God had to be with me that day because they tell you now not to stare at a dog and that it’s better to pretend he’s not there.  But folks this dog was there and he wasn’t happy with me.  I remembered in an old Davey Crocket movie how he claimed he had starred a bear down.  I thought if he could stare a bear down I could surely stare a dog down so I just stood as still as I could and looked this dog right in the eye.  He was returning the stare.  It had to be only five minutes or so but it felt like a couple of hours to me.  It’s hard to stand still when your knees are shaking.

            But eventually the dog lost interest in me and just turned and walked away.  I carefully made my way to my bike as quickly as I could and got away from there pronto just in case he changed his mind.  It may have just been a dog, but to me he was a giant dog.

            We’ve been talking about how Joshua and Caleb were trying to encourage the Children of Israel to believe God and to know that they could possess the Promised Land as found in Numbers 14:6-9.  We’ve called this series “The Breakfast of Champions” because Joshua and Caleb had told the people that the giants would be food for them.  Of course they weren’t referring to literally eating them but that their defeat would be fuel to build their faith.

            If you’re like me all through this series the title has probably made you think of “Wheaties” whose logo states that this cereal is the breakfast of champions.  They say this because it is supposed to have vitamins to make us healthy.

            The final part of the breakfast of champions is to face our giants.  We all have giants in our lives.  They are situations or problems that loom before us causing fear, tension and worry.  We don’t know how we can stand up to those giants and folks, in ourselves we can’t.  We will surely fail just like the Children of Israel would have failed had they faced their enemies by themselves.

            But they had God on their side.  God had even told them that He would go into the land before them and bring hornets to drive the people out.  He would be with them when they went to battle, and He was.  When the people, under the command of Joshua, did finally go into the Promised Land God gave them victory after victory.  He kept His word.

            And He will do the same for us.  We can view our giants as food to make us stronger in the Lord.  Sometimes defeating our giants means that we beat them in battle.  But sometimes facing our giants means that even though we may not stand a chance we still stand bravely and fearlessly before them.  We may not physically beat our giants.  Sometimes even though we’ve stood firm in the promise of God a disease still overtakes us.  Does that mean we’ve failed?  No it does not because you see when we stand firmly upon God’s promises whether we win on earth or in Heaven we still win because we have eaten the breakfast of champions.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.?  Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.