How would you fill in this blank? Realistically, before I step out to serve God, I would need more…
More what? More time? More money? More training or motivation?
Here’s how God fills in the blank in the Old Testament book of Judges: “All you need is more trust. If you trust that I am with you, you will do astonishing things for my glory.”
Judges is a book which describes a soul-wearying cycle of three D’s. God’s people disobey his commands. That plunges them into distress of one kind or another. When they cry out in pain, God sends homegrown deliverers – scrappy warriors who are skilled in guerilla warfare and have traditionally been known as “judges.” The tragic aspect of this book is that this cycle is repeated at least a dozen times. There is little evidence of learning or spiritual growth.
The good news is that whenever people cry out to God, in whatever century or circumstance, God initiates deliverance.
What’s startling on the pages of the Bible is how often God chooses self-doubting individuals to deliver the deliverance. God chooses small people to do big jobs. God preferentially chooses fearful people to walk into situations that will require vast courage. Why does God keep doing this?
More than anything, he longs for us to trust him – to take our eyes off our own size and to bet the farm on his immensity.
When we arrive at Judges chapter six, Israel is overrun by invaders known as the Midianites. Verse 11 introduces us to the nation’s next unlikely rescuer: “The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites.”
In a primitive agricultural setting, threshing requires level ground and a light breeze. The wheat and the chaff are crushed together into little pieces and then thrown up into the air, again and again. The breeze blows away the lighter chaff but allows the kernels of wheat to fall directly back to the ground.
So where is Gideon when we first see him? He is in a pit – an area that has been excavated for grape stomping. There is no breeze down in this pit. Gideon is afraid to show his face up on level ground for fear of losing his wheat to the marauding Midianites.
So what does the angel say to him? “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” Gideon’s response is reminiscent of Travis Bickle in the movie Taxi Driver, but with none of the attitude: “Are you talkin’ to me?” He pours out his doubts. “’But sir,’ Gideon replied, ‘if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, “Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?” But now the Lord has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.’”
This is the point at which Gideon would love for the conversation to end. He’s gotten a few things off his chest, and he is certain that he’s no mighty warrior, regardless of what an angel might say.
But God has a big job for Gideon: Gideon has to place a new Bible in every hotel room in the United States.
Actually, Gideon would have greatly preferred that assignment to the one he gets in verse 14: “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”
Look at Gideon’s astonished reply: “But Lord, how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” Gideon pleads impotence and insignificance. God will have none of it. “The Lord answered, ‘I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together.’”
Do you believe that God has a big job for you? Do you believe that somewhere, someone is praying for deliverance – maybe deliverance from loneliness, or futility, or danger, or spiritual hopelessness – and that God’s answer is going to involve a response that only you can make?
Most of us are modern-day Gideons. We’re fairly certain that somebody else ought to be doing the heavy lifting in the kingdom of God. But it’s not so.
You are not too young to answer God’s call. You are not too old. You are not “too small,” or “just a homemaker,” or “just a beginning Bible student.” There is a world that is famished for your service. And God is able and willing to use you, even when the task seems impossible – which proves to be Gideon’s primary challenge.
There are 135,000 soldiers in the Midianite camp. Gideon’s army has topped out at 32,000. That makes the odds four to one.
So God says to Gideon, “You know, this math is all wrong.” Gideon at this point must be thinking, “No kidding! How about a miraculous multiplication of warriors?”
That’s not what God has in mind. He says in Judges 7:2, “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her, announce now to the people, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave...’” Imagine Gideon’s horror when 22,000 men say, “You know, I think I left the oven on back home.”
Now what are the odds? Thirteen to one.
Some years ago, USA Today asked a number of top American CEO’s, “What accounts for your great wealth?” 99% attributed their success to their own hard work; 97% said it was intelligence and good sense; 83% pointed out their higher-than-average I.Q. God’s power and influence did not make the survey. God’s strategy for Gideon is to remove any grounds for human boasting in the next edition of Israel Today.
And God is hardly finished. He says in verse four, “There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will sift them for you there.” He continues, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues like a dog from those who kneel down to drink.”
All the kneelers are sent home. God intends to win this battle with the dog lappers. How many are there? Three hundred. At this point the odds have skyrocketed to 450 to one.
Some Bible teachers have tried to make a case that these 300 men are superior to those who have gone home. They aren’t afraid of combat, and they know how to drink water when danger is nearby, perhaps by cupping their hands to their mouths so they can scan the horizon.
But the phrase, “lapping the water with their tongues like a dog,” is a giveaway. The Bible is not Canine Friendly literature. In ancient times, dogs were not the kind of creatures you would invite into your family room.
In the Old Testament, if you really wanted to insult someone, you’d call them a “dog” or a “dead dog’s head.” Being a dog lapper did not mean you were an elite Army Ranger. These are the guys who don’t even know how to get a drink of water. This is the army with which Gideon will defeat the Midianites.
And how do things turn out? Take some time to read the remainder of Judges chapter seven, where Gideon and his little flock of 300 rout the Midianites without even raising their swords.
When God calls us, it doesn’t matter how big we are. God’s size is the issue. When God calls us, it doesn’t matter what the odds appear to be. God unfailingly takes care of those who entrust the present and the future to him.
Your significance is not the point. Your insignificance is not the point.
God’s significance is the real point.
And that’s the one thing we most need to know today, tomorrow, and every day to follow.
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