David and His Dornicks

“Dornick”.

Maybe like me you haven't a clue what that word means.

I was looking up another definition on my phone's dictionary app, when “dornick” popped up as The Word of the Day for that particular date. Intrigued, I clicked the button and found out that it means a small stone that is easy to throw. And then I smiled, because what Bible-reading Christian hears that definition and doesn't immediately think of David, who picked up a pocketful of the same to sling Goliath's way? It's an old word and a long-ago story that together can have a powerful impact on the enemies we face today.

Thankfully we don't deal with 9-foot giants on a daily basis...or do we? The problems we face loom as large in our sight as that mountain of a man did when he stood before David, and their taunts are eerily the same. “Who are you to think that you can battle this successfully with your own weak resources?” “You have no chance of overcoming a challenge as large as this!” Morning, noon and night our problems rise and roar at us, and we cower and run like the Israelite army did at the sight of Goliath. Only David stood before him unafraid.

He knew he was just a boy, untrained in the ways of warfare. But he wasn't relying on his own abilities when he volunteered for the job; he was relying on God's. For that reason he shunned the offer of King Saul's armor, that the people would know that it was the size of his God rather than the size of his sword that would bring the victory. And he had a history of successes in fighting enemies with God on his side.

Don't we, as well? Oh, how powerful our testimonies are in the battles we face! They remind us of the goodness of God, the power of God...the faithfulness of our Father. From them we gain faith and courage and hope for the current struggle. And just as David had his dornicks, we have weapons of warfare, as well...five smooth stones known as faith, prayer, authority, power and grace. It is essential that we perceive, pick up and pocket those pebbles before entering the fray...and then have the wisdom to know which to use on any particular day.

We know the One we serve and the love He has for those He has made. We all have been given a measure of faith, but there were times in the Bible when a person approached Jesus with such extraordinary belief in Him when faced with a particular problem that it moved Jesus to action. His words, “Your faith has healed you” indicate which stone the individual had hurled at his disability and that it had hit its mark.

God longs to intervene in all our situations, large or small, and so He invites us to ask for what we need...to approach Him in prayer with our requests (accompanied by thanks-in-advance!). And He promises that those who ask, receive an answer...those who seek, find what they are looking for...those who knock on the door of His heart find it opened to them in response. The action to take in anxious times is simply to ask God for His help.

Sometimes we ask God for help that He has already placed in our hands! He reminds us of the authority He has given us over all the power of the enemy. We just need to recognize it, pick it up and put it into play.

What about those times when we don't know what we need or to ask for; we simply know that He does? It is for these that He has given us the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit to sling a stone on our behalf for what we do not even know how to ask...and the Holy Spirit simply never misses.

And finally, there are times when He floods us with His anointing to accomplish a particular task, to do what we otherwise could not do without the grace He bestows upon us for that particular need.

I pocketed a whole lot more than just a new word in that “dornick” dictionary lookup; I found I carry extraordinary power in my pouch! My part in my battles is simply to select the right ammunition, run toward the enemy and sling it his way! The power in the stone is in the Rock who has already defeated the one who wants to rock our world.

“He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.”

(Deuteronomy 32:4 NIV)