It is for our own benefit that God tells us to remember. The memory of our past deliverances helps to increase our faith for what we are going through right now.
Are you facing a crisis? Do you have a menacing giant of a problem, at home, at work, or in your family? The only way to face a giant is to do as David did: remember the lion and the bear. By remembering God’s faithfulness to him in his past crises, David could go up against Goliath without fear.
When David volunteered to fight Goliath, “Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him…. And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: and I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth…. Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them” (1 Samuel 17:33-36).
David knew the danger he was facing against Goliath. He wasn’t some novice, a naïve kid full of bravado and looking for a fight. No, David was simply remembering his past deliverances. And now he looked his enemy squarely in the eye and stated, “The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine” (17:37).
Have you forgotten the time you were so sick that you were close to death, but the Lord raised you up? Do you remember that financial disaster when you thought, “That’s it, I’m finished,” yet the Lord saw you through it, and has kept you to this day?
There are many things we don’t understand and we won’t understand until we are home with Jesus. But I absolutely believe that God has a way out of every situation.
It comes only by remembering the lion and the bear. It comes when you’re able to recall the incredible faithfulness of God, and the past victories he has given you.
If we have experienced God’s faithfulness in the past, why are we anxious about the future?
David Wilkerson
Bible Teacher/Author/Pastor
Changi Chapel 
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