Judges 6

(June 5, 2014)
The story of Gideon is a fantastic one in the Bible.  There were two thoughts that I took away from my reading today.  The first of these was that even among the children of Israel, worship of the Lord was not a common thing.  I suppose that I understood, in general, that they had gone astray but it had never hit me like it did today that the majority of God’s people didn’t even worship Him.  I found comfort in that, because in our current day we are such a minority who try to follow Him as we should, and it sometimes seems that culture and political powers are doing everything they can to squash those attempts.  If the Lord can raise Gideon out of such a set of circumstances, then He can likewise raise us out of our current circumstances if we will let Him.

Secondly, of course, we have the miracles that were performed by the Lord to the convincing of Gideon.  There are two elements at work here.  First, Gideon was prepared to be obedient.  Second, there was a work that Gideon had to accomplish.  I have been blessed to have participated in a supernatural, miraculous event and for a long time I never considered why.  But the older I get, and as I look back on that event, I realize that it was because I was obedient and trying to be obedient, and that the Lord has reason for me to be there to witness it.  Without that miracle as an anchor-point for me to base my clear belief in the supernatural upon, I don’t think that I would have been able to carry out some other obligations that the Lord has placed upon me.  So the miracle was not to be consumed on my lusts, but rather to prepare me for the next task the Lord set out for me to do for Him.