Master's Canvas – Writing & Photography by David K. Carpenter

A little over a month ago, I wrote a post called The Spirit in You Is Greater, reflecting on the truth that we do not need to be afraid in this fallen and broken world because the Spirit of God living within us is greater than the spirit of this world.

After reading it, one of my faithful readers—and a dear friend—asked a thoughtful question:

“What if the thing that’s causing me to be afraid isn’t out there? What if it’s living inside my own mind?”

It’s a great question.

In fact, it’s a question I’ve been pondering ever since he asked it.

Sometimes the giants we face aren’t circumstances.

They’re thoughts.

Worries.

Fears.

Regrets.

What-ifs.

Memories we can’t seem to shake.

Anxieties about things that haven’t happened yet—and may never happen at all.

And if we’re honest, those giants can sometimes feel larger than anything happening around us.

The thought that eventually came to me is straightforward.

But as is often the case with God’s answers, simple doesn’t necessarily mean easy.

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Paul’s Prescription for Inner Giants

Writing from prison—hardly an ideal situation—Paul gave the believers in Philippi these instructions:

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
—Philippians 4:6–7 (NIV)

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What Paul Does Not Say

One of the things I love about this passage is what Paul doesn’t say.

He doesn’t say:

“Figure it out.”

He doesn’t say:

“Stop worrying.”

He doesn’t say:

“Try harder not to be anxious.”

Instead, he gives us a different path.

Bring it to God.

All of it.

The fears.
The worries.
The questions.
The scenarios we’ve played out a thousand times in our minds.

The giants.

Present your requests to God.

Not once.

Not only when things become unbearable.

In every situation.

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The Giant Gets Stronger When We Feed It

I think Paul understood something about human nature.

Our minds are incredible gifts from God.

But left unchecked, they can also become factories for fear.

We replay old conversations.

We rehearse future disasters.

We dwell on mistakes we’ve already made.

We imagine outcomes that may never happen.

And before long, the giant in our minds begins to feel more real than the God who created the universe.

I know because I’ve done it.

Maybe you have too.

The more attention we give to fear, the larger it appears.

The more we rehearse worst-case scenarios, the more inevitable they begin to feel.

The more we focus on the giant, the less we focus on God.

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David’s Secret

As I reflected on this, my mind kept returning to another famous giant.

Goliath.

For forty days, the Israelites listened to Goliath’s threats.

Morning and evening.

Day after day.

The giant kept talking.

And the people kept listening.

Eventually, nobody could imagine defeating him.

But something occurred to me recently.

The giant hadn’t actually grown.
Their fear had.

When David arrived on the scene, he heard the same giant everyone else heard.

But he saw something different.

Everyone else compared Goliath to themselves.

David compared Goliath to God.

That’s the difference.

The size of the giant hadn’t changed.

The point of reference had.

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What Prayer Actually Does

I think this is where many of us misunderstand prayer.

We often approach it as a way to get God to remove the giant.

And sometimes He does.

But often, something else happens first.

Prayer changes what we’re comparing the giant to.

Instead of comparing our fear to our strength…

we begin comparing our fear to God’s faithfulness.

Instead of comparing our problem to our resources…

we begin comparing our problem to God’s power.

Instead of focusing on what might happen…

we begin focusing on the One who holds what happens next.

Prayer doesn’t always immediately change our circumstances.

But it almost always changes our perspective.

And sometimes that’s where the real battle is won.

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The Control We Never Really Had

As I reflected on Paul’s words, another thought occurred to me.

The only way to experience the peace he describes is to do the thing he tells us to do first.

Present our requests to God.

Our fears.

Our anxieties.

Our worries.

Our what-ifs.

Which means that, at some level, peace requires surrender.

Because anxiety is often fueled by our desire to control things that were never actually under our control to begin with.

We want to know how things will turn out.

We want guarantees.

We want certainty.

We want the outcome to match our preferred plan.

But God invites us into something different.

He invites us to remember who is actually in charge.

He is God.

We are not.

In many ways, this is the heart of Psalm 46:10:

God isn’t calling us to passivity.

He’s calling us to surrender.

To stop grasping for control that was never ours to begin with and remember who is actually sitting on the throne.

And while that may sound unsettling at first, it is actually incredibly freeing.

Because if God is truly in control, then I don’t have to be.

I still have responsibilities.

I still make decisions.

I still take action where I can.

But I no longer have to carry the impossible burden of controlling the outcome.

That’s God’s job.

Mine is trust.

The reality is that God’s answer will ultimately be God’s answer whether I spend the next week worrying about it or trusting Him with it.

One path leads to anxiety.

The other leads to peace.

Neither changes who is in control.

Only one changes my experience of the journey.

Maybe that’s part of what Paul was trying to teach us.

The path to peace is not gaining more control.
It’s surrendering the illusion of control to the One who has it already.

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Slaying Giants One Prayer at a Time

Here’s what surprised me as I reflected on my friend’s question.

Slaying the giant within usually isn’t one dramatic victory.

Most of the time, it’s a thousand small ones.

A decision to pray instead of panic.

A decision to trust instead of catastrophize.

A decision to bring the fear back to God for the fifteenth time that day.

A decision to believe that God’s promises are more reliable than our emotions.

Sometimes slaying the giant looks less like David running toward Goliath…

and more like repeatedly handing the same fear back to God until it loses its grip on us.

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The Promise Hidden in the Passage

There’s something else in Paul’s words that I overlooked for years.

Notice what God promises.

Paul does not say God will explain everything.

He does not say God will solve every problem immediately.

He does not even say God will remove every source of anxiety.

What he promises is peace.

And not ordinary peace.

“And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
—Philippians 4:7 (NIV)

In other words:

A peace that doesn’t make sense.

A peace that arrives before the circumstances change.

A peace that shows up while the giant is still standing there.

That’s why this peace is supernatural.

It’s not dependent on the giant disappearing.

It’s dependent on God’s presence.

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A Final Encouragement

If you’ve been wrestling with a giant inside your own mind lately…

fear…

anxiety…

regret…

shame…

uncertainty…

you’re not alone.

And you’re not powerless.

The answer may be simpler than you wish.

But it is also more powerful than you realize.

Bring it to God.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Not because God didn’t hear you the first time.

But because every time you pray, you are choosing to focus on His greatness instead of the giant’s.

And over time, something remarkable begins to happen.

The giant doesn’t seem quite so big anymore.

Not because it changed.

But because you’re finally seeing it in the shadow of a much bigger God.

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A Question to Sit With

What giant in my mind have I been staring at…

and what might happen if I started staring at God instead?