Today’s reading: Judges 7; Acts 19
For as slow as Gideon was to trust God, and for as poorly as he listened to Him, God still used him powerfully in His work and that should be deeply encouraging to us. At the same time though, Gideon also took matters into his own hands and missed out on seeing God’s deliverance for Israel, and that should be sobering for us.
There are days when I honestly just feel almost overwhelmed by my own fickleness of heart before the Lord. I continue to fail in the same ways, I continue to try to fill the same broken cisterns that I already know won’t hold any water, I don’t listen to His voice, I don’t follow where He says to go, and I just wonder, at what point is He going to decide that enough is enough and drop me from His work? I know my salvation is secure in Christ, but there are days I just feel too sinful and too unfaithful to actually be used in His work to any real effect or purpose. When I am struggling with feeling this way, Gideon is an encouragement to me.
To start with, think about how slow Gideon was to trust the Lord. He didn’t believe him at first when we was threshing wheat in the wine press, and then after he realized who it was he was dealing with and agreed to go, he had God prove himself by signs twice before he went. Then, after he knew God was with them because He had spoken to Gideon to have him whittle down Israel’s numbers, Gideon still needed to go to the enemy camp and hear the dream to be assured that God was actually going to give the Midianites into his hand. Gideon was very slow to trust God, but there is never any indication that God took any issue with that slowness. More than simply being patient with Gideon, God even proactively provided the avenue of assurance by way of the dream at the Midianite camp! God is so much more patient with us than I personally think is reasonable, but I can never be thankful enough for just how unreasonably patient He has been with me and continues to be with me…
But with Gideon, it’s not just the slow start that I can relate to, but the poor listening as well. When Gideon had an army over 30,000 strong, God told him that was too many people because He wanted it to be clear that the victory was His, not the result of Israel’s great army, so 22,000 people left. Then, God again told Gideon that it was still too many people and He whittled it down to 300 men, telling Gideon to send the rest of the men home. But then, after God delivers the Midianites into Gideon’s hand, he calls back up a full army to pursue and strike them down as they flee. Gideon started strong, but then ended with the very pragmatic approach that God had explicitly command against. God had whittled down their numbers to 300 because it was to be His victory, not theirs, but then Gideon took matters into his own hands to ensure he got the victory he wanted.
I couldn’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve done this. There have been times when someone opens up to me about where they’re at with God and while I start listening to them in love, I ultimately turn it into an argument to be won or a lifeless list of apologetic arguments for faith in Christ. There have been times when a brother or sister in Christ comes to me looking for counsel and I have been quick to give my own advice rather than pointing them back to the Lord’s counsel in His Word. There have been times I have had the opportunity to teach the Word and have been so focused on what I thought was cool or exciting about the passage that I never stopped to ask what the Lord would have me teach or what the people I was teaching needed to hear out of it until after it wasn’t received as well as I had expected it would be. There have been nights I get home from working with the youth group my wife and I serve in and realize I went the entire night without really thinking about anybody other than myself…
Way too often I am like Gideon, and even if I put myself in a position to serve the Lord, I quickly take things up and do them my own way or under my own power rather than trusting Him and relying on His power to accomplish His work. But the fact of the matter is, God still used Gideon to work a great deliverance or Israel. Now, that’s not to say Gideon and Israel didn’t miss out. How might God have won the victory if Gideon hadn’t called up the rest of the people to chase them down as they fled? How memorable might His miraculous deliverance have been? How much more glory might that victory have brought to God? How much more fear might that divine victory have brought to the surrounding nations that would otherwise continue to threaten and attack Israel? We don’t know because Gideon didn’t let God show His power and give the victory He wanted to. So while God still used Gideon powerfully, there may very well have been quite a bit still left on the table because Gideon decided to do it his way instead of the Lord’s.
So while it’s encouraging that the Lord is still able to use us, even when we are operating under our own power and/or trying to do things our own way, I don’t ever want to become complacent about that because I want to see the fullness of what God has to offer. I want to go His way more fully because I want to see Him more fully glorified and see His work more greatly accomplished. I am beyond grateful that I get to have any role at all in the Lord’s work, but I want to grow increasingly faithful with the role He has given me so that I can more fully see the greatness of our God.
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