What "Facing My Giants" means
Riley Clemmons writes for the generation that grew up inside both church and cultural chaos simultaneously, and this song reflects that dual inheritance. "Facing My Giants" borrows the David-and-Goliath image not as a metaphor for easy victory but as a starting point for honesty. The giants in this song are not abstractions. They are the specific, named things in a person's life that feel larger than their own capacity to handle: anxiety, failure, relational collapse, the sense that the thing standing in front of them is simply too big. Clemmons does not spiritualize the giants away in the early lines. She names them as real, which is the first honest thing the song does for the congregation. The theological move the song makes is not "your giants will fall" as a prosperity promise but "you do not face them alone." That is a different and more durable claim. The David story is instructive here because David did not minimize Goliath. He acknowledged the size of what he was up against and ran toward it anyway. The song is asking the congregation to run toward rather than away from the things that feel impossible, not because those things are small, but because the one who runs with them is greater than whatever is standing in the field.
What this song does in a room
This song finds the people who are not sure whether they belong in a worship service that morning. The people who came in carrying something so heavy that the opening praise songs felt disconnected from where they actually are. "Facing My Giants" gives those people a moment. It names the interior experience of standing in front of something overwhelming without offering a quick fix or a tidy resolution. That pastoral function is significant. When a congregation member hears their actual experience named in a worship song, the experience of the service changes for them. They are no longer performing participation. They are actually in the room. The song also creates permission for the people who have been told, explicitly or implicitly, that faith means you do not feel afraid. There is a strand of Christian culture that treats fear or struggle as evidence of insufficient faith, and this song is a gentle and firm correction to that. You can be facing giants and still be standing in faith. The posture the song invites is courage, not certainty, and those two things are not the same.
What this song is saying about God
The song positions God as the one who shows up specifically in the hard confrontation, not just in the victory that follows it. That is a pastoral theological distinction worth naming. Many worship songs celebrate what God has already done. This song addresses what God is doing now, in the moment of standing in front of the thing that feels impossible. The claim is that God does not wait for the giant to fall before showing up. God is present in the facing itself. That is a more intimate and incarnational picture of God than the triumphalist version that dominates some worship cultures. The song trusts the congregation with the tension rather than resolving it prematurely. There is a difference between a God who gives you victory and a God who is with you in the fight, and for the person standing in front of something that has not yet fallen, the second picture is the only one that actually helps them stay in the room and keep going.
Scriptural backbone
1 Samuel 17:45-47 is the narrative backbone: "David said to the Philistine, 'You come against me with 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.'" David's declaration is not that the giant is small. It is that the one behind David is greater than the one in front. Isaiah 41:10 provides the direct pastoral word: "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." The song draws from the same well as that verse: presence as the answer to fear, not the elimination of the threatening thing. Psalm 27:1 adds the declarative frame: "The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?" That verse names the same courage posture Clemmons is inviting, rooted not in the absence of fear but in the presence of a God who does not step back when the situation gets large.
How to use it in a service
This song works best when placed inside a service arc that has already moved into honest territory. If the service has opened with high praise and moved through declaration, this song can function as the moment of personal application, the place where the congregational energy turns inward and individual rather than communal. It fits naturally before a prayer time for specific needs, or before a response moment. It also works well in a series on faith, courage, or the life of David as a direct textual companion to the narrative. In a youth or young adult context, the song lands particularly well because Clemmons speaks in a register familiar to that generation without being condescending about it. The arrangement is accessible enough that it does not require a production explanation, but it carries enough theological weight to deserve a brief pastoral frame before you play. Something as simple as: "This song is for the thing you walked in here carrying this morning that feels too big to name." That one sentence does the job.
Things to watch for as the worship leader
Watch your instinct to close the song on a triumphalist note if the arrangement does not earn it. The song is an honest song, and forcing a victory landing onto it before the congregation has arrived there emotionally is a pastoral mistake. Let the song breathe in its honesty and trust the congregation to find the courage posture on their own. Watch the faces in the room during the second verse and pre-chorus. You will see people land, the recognition of "this is my thing" showing up on faces in the room. Those are the people for whom the song is doing its job. Keep the space open for them rather than rushing toward the emotional peak. Watch the dynamic of the band. This song should feel like it is building toward something, but the something should be solidarity and presence, not volume and energy for its own sake. The climax of the song is relational, not sonic. Watch your transition into or out of prayer. If you are heading into a prayer moment after this song, the ending should feel like an opening rather than a conclusion, an invitation to bring the giants into the room and set them down.
A note for the team behind you (techs, vocalists, band)
For the band: 85 BPM in G major gives this song a forward movement that should feel like resolve rather than urgency. The kick drum should be present and steady without driving the song faster than it wants to go. In the verses, consider pulling the kick back or using a half-time feel so the song builds more effectively into the chorus. The bass should follow the lyric's emotional trajectory: spare and grounded in the verses, fuller and more present in the chorus where the declaration opens up. Keys or piano should carry warmth in the bridge without going cinematic. If you have a building moment in the bridge where the song opens up, this is where the full band earns its place in the arrangement. For vocalists: Riley Clemmons's vocal style is vulnerable and declarative in turns, and the lead vocalist should be willing to go to an honest, vulnerable place in the verses rather than presenting polished confidence throughout. That emotional movement from honesty in the verse to declaration in the chorus is the song's journey, and the vocalist is the congregation's guide through it. Harmonies should be reserved for the chorus and should push the dynamic upward without burying the lead. For techs: compress the vocal slightly more in the verses to keep the intimate register present without losing clarity. In the chorus, let the vocal breathe more openly. If you are using a click track for the band, make sure the in-ear mix for the vocalist has enough musical context so the performance does not feel mechanical. Lighting should begin at low warm tones and build toward the chorus. The bridge is the moment for full room brightness if your rig allows it.