I am not sure if there are any important physical lessons to learned from
David and Goliath except perhaps that a small stone can do a lot of damage
if moving fast enough!

There are many spiritual lessons to be gleaned from David and Goliath! The
most clear lesson is that reliance on God is far more important than
physical strength and training. To quote David, “You come against me with
the sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the
Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This
day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut
off your head.” (1 Samuel 17:45,46).

Another lesson is that God delights in bringing down the pride of those
who trust in their own strength. Given a choice, God would prefer to use
the humble and the untrained, rather than those who are great in the eyes
of the world to teach us that only through him will we experience true
happiness and success. A cross reference to this concept is in 1
Corinthians 1:18-31. “For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s
wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

I would say we can learn from the lack of success of Saul as well. If you
go back to 1 Sam 13 you will see a man who started out fairly well. Saul
was humble and teachable and God was able to use him to accomplish great
things. However, if you read in 1 Sam 15, you will see that when Saul was
successful, he let his success go to his head and did not obey God. By the
time of 1 Samuel 17, Saul has lost his faith in God and is unable to do
what the king should have done, which is to stand up to the enemies of
God’s people. We have encouragement in David and warning in Saul.

I could mention many other lessons, but let me finish with one more. I see
a lesson in the attitude of David’s family. They saw him as the youngest,
the weakest and the least qualified to do great things for God. This is
because they looked at the outward appearance, rather than at the great
spiritual qualities of David. Praise and honor in the eyes of the world is
no indication whatever of excellence in God’s eyes. Consider 1 Samuel 16:7
as a cross reference.

I hope David’s story can be a great encouragement to your faith and cause
you to rely more on God.

John Oakes