In 1 Samuel 17 we have the well known story of David and Goliath. Goliath was 9 feet 9 inches tall. His helmet weighted 58kg and his javelin was just under 7kg. We are also told that he was a seasoned warrior.

We are only told that David was good looking! However, David had an implicit trust in the power of God. David goes to face Goliath with a leather sling and some stones. David said to Goliath,

(45) ...“You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied....Then all this assembly shall know that the LORD does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the LORD’s, and He will give you into our hands.” —1 Samuel 17:45–47, NKJV

David believed that he would win because of God, not his physical strength, battle experience nor weapons. We think this is faith. But faith is not faith until it is acted upon. David demonstrated his faith by going into battle, facing a bigger and stronger enemy and trusting that God would give him victory.

This is where we need to do a little imagining to see David's faith. I want you to imagine that you are David. You've said what he said. Now all that's left is to go and fight Goliath? Here comes the risky bit, you've got to act on what you believe. You've got to pick up the stoens take your sling and go out and fight. This is faith. We trust God enough to act on his word. This is always in a context of risking something. In this case David was risking his life.

So let me encourage you when reading the Bible. Look for the place of risk when a person acts in faith. Put yourself in that place and you will see the challenge of faith and that it always involves risk. Then ask yourself where the risk of faith is in your own life and act like David.

I already have software to do this. BBedit is my long time text editor, but it also does HTML & CSS amongst other things. I also have Transmit that I've used to upload files to a server in the past.

I bought a book on learning web design that taught me HTML5 and CSS3. I realised that it could do 99% of what I need for my site. I initially thought of using an online CMS system, but realised that so many of these systems become too expensive or just plain disappear. By using HTML5 and CSS3 my site will be readable as long as I pay my hosting company! I'm sure the HTML5 and CSS3 spec will change, but doubt it will deprecate the basics I use.

My website is hand-coded using vanilla HTML5 and CSS3 and uploaded to my server. I create my own RSS file and copy in the new content each time I update my site.

I get a great sense of satisfaction doing this. I also don't need my site to look like every Wordpress site and can do things in a way that suits me. Let's hope I produce some content that's worth reading!

I do want to thank Derek Sivers, whose website and simplicity has finally got me to build my own site.