Ps.46:9 – EXP – He stops wars ·everywhere on [to the ends of] the earth.
He breaks all bows and shatters spears
and burns up the chariots [or shields] with fire.

David understood quite well the difference between fighting in your own strength and fighting by the power of God. We see this clearly in David’s first public battle when he challenged the Philistine giant Goliath. Saul, the King of Israel tried to get young David to take his own armor and sword to battle. David refused choosing to face the giant with a sling and a stone. In David’s mind the battle was the Lord’s and he wasn’t going to battle clothed with the weapons of the flesh. The outcome was shocking to the world who had no idea of the power of God. The only person not caught by surprise was David, he knew he was fighting by the power of God. Here is how Augustine describes today’s verse.

“When anyone realizes that we are nothing in ourselves and cannot look to ourselves for any help at all, that person’s weapons have all been broken, and the wars that raged within him or her are quelled.… If God takes up our cause, will he abandon us in our unarmed condition? By no means. He equips us, but with weapons of a different order, the evangelical weapons of truth, self-control, salvation, hope, faith and charity. We shall wield these weapons, but they will not come from ourselves. The arms we did have as from ourselves will have been burned, provided that we are enkindled by that fire of the Holy Spirit of which the psalm declares, “The shields he will burn with fire.” You aspired to be powerful in yourself, but God has made you weak in order to make you strong with his strength, for your own was nothing but weakness.”

How do we take this lesson into our own day to day life? Just as David faced a demonic giant we all have our personal giants to face everyday. Our challenge is not to go into battle wearing Saul’s armor, we must be clothed with the armor of God. What does your giant look like today? Is it a health problem or maybe financial situations, whatever it may be we have to come to the conclusion that the battle is the Lord’s. The next verse in David’s Psalm says it all, Psalm.46:10 – “God says, “Be still and know that I am God.
I will be ·praised [exalted] in all the nations;
I will be ·praised [exalted] throughout the earth.”