God Calls Them in the Air

The Angel of the Lord came, and He sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash, Abiezrite. His son Gideon was threshing wheat in the wine vat in order to hide it from the Midianites. Then the Angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” Judges 6:11,12

Samson, of course, gets all the attention in Judges, but, to me, Gideon is at least as interesting – more so in some ways.

As I mentioned yesterday, Judges records a number of cycles. When Gideon is called, Israel was at one of its nadirs. The Midianites, largely nomadic, would sweep in and pillage Israel. Normally, threshing was done in a high, open area to allow the breeze to catch the lighter chaff as the grain was tossed upward, making the separation easier. Gideon is down in a wine vat, essentially a hole cut into the rock, hiding from the Midianites while he flailed away, sweating and laboring to get enough grain separated out to have something to eat. It was a miserable situation brought on by Israel’s abandonment of God.

Paul, speaking of Abraham in Romans 4:16, 17, says: He is the father of us all in God’s sight. As it is written: I have made you the father of many nations. He believed in God, who gives life to the dead and calls things into existence that do not exist.

When the Lord shows up, Gideon does not look like a mighty warrior. As is evident in his subsequent conversation, Gideon does not see himself as a warrior or significant in any way.

God says to an old, childless man with an elderly, barren wife, “You are the father of nations.”

He says to a man cowering in a hole, “You are a mighty warrior.”

I am not merely what I appear to be, and -- though there is a truth in “as a man thinketh in his heart so is he” – I am not limited to what I have come to think about myself. I am what God says I am. I am what God sees in me.

The Lord declares that He is with Gideon. Gideon responded by looking at the disastrous situation of himself and his people. “If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? I’ve heard all the stories about Egypt, the Red Sea, and the conquest of Canaan, but that’s all the past. It looks like God has abandoned us and handed us over to Midian.”

How often I have said the same thing when push came to shove. “God has abandoned me.” It’s not true. I don’t think there are always easy answers. It would be simple if I could say that I am always to blame for my own suffering. In fact, it sometimes appears that none of my good deeds go unpunished, as they say. Nevertheless, God does not hand me over to the enemy any more than He handed Job over. I am the clay. He is the Potter. He shapes me by His own hand, and then there is the fire – but we’ll leave that for another day.

Let’s go back to Gideon who had all the excuses. He was of Manasseh – not the most prestigious of the tribes. Not only that, his family was small and insignificant even within Manasseh. He is the youngest of the sons – hence, the least important, and his father, Joash, was an idolater, having built an altar to Baal.

As Gideon lays out all the reasons why he is not the guy, the Lord responds:

“Go in the strength you have ... Am I not sending you? ... I will be with you.”

That’s really the bottom line. I have to go in the strength I have. How can that possibly be enough? I don’t have what it takes. I don’t have the education. I don’t have the intellect. I don’t have the eloquence, the charm, the beauty, the physique.

God says, “Don’t worry about what you don’t have. Take what you have and go. That’s the key. Step out there. This is God talking to you – think about it. I am right there with you. Do you somehow think that I don’t know what I am doing?”

So today, in spite of the obstacles, in spite of my fears, I will go in the strength that I have and see what happens.