Aug 18, 2026 · 5 min read
David and Goliath: A Family Devotion About Being Small
**Everybody knows how this one ends, so read it for the detail nobody remembers.** David tries on Saul's armour first, and takes it off because he cannot walk in it.
He refuses the borrowed version
The armour was the king's, and it was the best in the camp. David went out with what he had actually practised with: a sling and five stones from the stream. Courage in this story looks like refusing to pretend to be someone bigger.
Forty days of shouting
Goliath came out twice a day for nearly six weeks. The problem had been going on long enough to feel normal. Some things in a family work like that — a habit nobody challenges any more. Name one gently tonight.
Not a story about being brave enough
David's line before the fight is about God, not about himself. Worth saying plainly to a child who is scared of something at school this week: the story isn't telling them to be bigger. It's telling them who is with them at their actual size.
Tonight's five minutes
**Read:** 1 Samuel 17, out loud, twice. **Ask:** What is the thing you'd face if you weren't scared of it? **Pray:** God, we are small and some things are big. Go with us tomorrow into the thing we are dreading. Amen.
If you'd rather not choose the passage yourself, tonight's family devotion is already written for this evening — one passage, one table question and a 30-second prayer, refreshed every day. You can also have it emailed to you each evening so it arrives before dinner.