As I was thinking today, I came across a thought. Now that may sound very much like Winnie the Pooh but that is really unintentional. It is not uncommon for me to stumble across a thought. Luke 12:12 For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.” These moments, even as I am speaking only to myself are important. Many times, when I have been in the middle of study it happens. It happened as my own children were young and I thought “Lord how do I communicate what they desperately need to know?” and the scripture answers clearly. Let the spirit teach.
I recall being asked to teach in front of a gathering of young adults. I was terrified! Me preach? Lord, are you sure? “I have taught kids sure but these are like …people!” we spoke for a time but in the end, God brought me to speak on the account of Gideon. Judges 6:11 Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.”
I read this passage in my preparation time and I stumbled over a thought. I thought, “Isn’t the way that God looks at us odd?” Gideon is in a wine press hiding from the enemy. Yet God said greetings man of valor! the thought hit me as I studied and all through my study, I stumbled. I read on about the crazy way that God allowed Gideon to test Him with the fleece. and I fell on my face as I stumbled over the thought, this is so much like me. He was so uncertain. And yet God wasn’t angry at him, Gideon was just being honest right?
I went through all the amazing ways that God interacted with Gideon and I thought “well Lord this project will have to be yours.” And so I found myself in front of this group of young people and teaching. We saw in the story that God met Gideon, and God taught Gideon the strengths God had already given him.we saw how God opened Gideons eyes to things that can be, not just what is. I was teaching my heart out about how God sifted Gideons men down to only three hundred. And they faced an army so large it was without number.
Then God revealed HIS power to Gideon again. A Place where the reality hit home. God measures the status of our valor far differently than the world does. Gideon Followed God and that made him a man of valor but his first battle ahd to be against himself! He had to fight off fear like me, God helped him. He had to realize that His strength was never enough to begin with Just like me. God helped him. And I presented what God was revealing to me even as I was there up front obeying. Then we came in the story to the place that the men surrounded the enemy camp. Judges 7:16 And he divided the 300 men into three companies and put trumpets into the hands of all of them and empty jars, with torches inside the jars. 17 And he said to them, “Look at me, and do likewise. When I come to the outskirts of the camp, do as I do. 18 When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then blow the trumpets also on every side of all the camp and shout, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon.”
Here we were at the climax of the lesson telling this crazy story of how God gave confirmation to Gideon. And Gideon obeyed. He divided all of his 300 measly men and he put a trumpet in one hand, and a sword in the other. And then right there in front of them all I stumbled over a thought. And it stopped me. I was literally stunned by the thought. Judges 7:20Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars. They held in their left hands the torches, and in their right hands the trumpets to blow. And they cried out, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!”
I paused because I had never had the realization before. I loved the story of Gideon because so many of his ways were so like mine, but this! If every man had a torch in his left hand, and a trumpet in his right hand… NOBODY HAD A SWORD!
Judges 7:22 When they blew the 300 trumpets, the Lord set every man’s sword against his comrade and against all the army. And the army fled as far as Beth-shittah toward Zererah as far as the border of Abel-meholah, by Tabbath.
God did that for Gideon and in that moment and hundreds of others, God has done that for me. And he is still doing it! The overwhelming torrents of thought. Bipolar depression. Noise in my head until it begins to hurt! Enemies all around! God defeats it all If I let him. I don’t even need a sword.
Jeff
Leave a Reply