What a mess! Today’s reading opens with Israel hiding in caves. The enemy is so thick you can’t count them all. They are destroying Israel’s crops and stealing their livestock. Israel is left to starve! Baal, the god of the hour, is powerless to protect them! It seems this idolatry thing isn’t working out so well! So, a pillaged and starving Israel cries out to the LORD God!
Gideon! What an interesting answer from God! God finds this man threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress, hiding from the enemy. Creative? Sure! Glorious? No! So, who is Gideon? Gideon is from the weakest clan in the whole tribe of Manasseh and the least in his entire family. To make matters more interesting, his top three strengths are fear, doubt, and confusion. Ouch! What is God doing? Here, we have an enemy too big to count and too powerful to stop. God’s answer? A man known by no one, equally outsized in fear, doubt, and confusion! Hum… let’s sit in on this conversation between God and Gideon.
The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the LORD is with you!” “Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The LORD brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the LORD has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.” Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!” “But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!” The LORD said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.” (Judges 6:12–16, NLT)
Wow! This morning, the phrase that stood out to me is from verse 14, “Go with the strength you have…” Is Gideon to go with the strength he has? Yes! But his strength is best understood as fear, doubt, and confusion! Here is what God is doing. We see the minimizing of man and the maximizing of God’s Glory in preparation for the upcoming deliverance of Israel!
Believer, what has God set before you? Is His will scary? Do you feel the least qualified for the call echoing in your heart? Are you fighting back the doubts? Are you confused because the path requires an uncomfortable amount of faith and exposure? Perhaps every step you need to take looks like an entire war all by itself.
Then go, oh mighty hero, in the strength that you have, for God will be with you! God specializes in minimizing us so that His glory might be maximized through us, not in canceling the mission! If we could do it all, there would be no room for God at all! He must increase; we must decrease. Has God already prepared the way? Yes! Then, let’s go with the strength we have; God is with us!
Thank you for joining with me as I read and journal chronologically through the Bible! This devotional reflection comes from Judges 6:1-7:25.
Another incredible devotional filled with so much truth! Reading about Gideon is such an encouragement, because his list of “strengths” are insanely relatable! It’s so easy to look at ourselves, especially in a cultural that praises self, instead of looking to Holy Sovereign King. Great job as always Matthew so good!