Joshua 7:2-7 MSG God said to Gideon, “You have too large an army with you. I can’t turn Midian over to them like this—they’ll take all the credit, saying, ‘I did it all myself,’ and forget about me. Make a public announcement: ‘Anyone afraid, anyone who has any qualms at all, may leave Mount Gilead now and go home.’” Twenty-two companies headed for home. Ten companies were left.
4-5 God said to Gideon: “There are still too many. Take them down to the stream and I’ll make a final cut. When I say, ‘This one goes with you,’ he’ll go. When I say, ‘This one doesn’t go,’ he won’t go.” So Gideon took the troops down to the stream.
5-6 God said to Gideon: “Everyone who laps with his tongue, the way a dog laps, set on one side. And everyone who kneels to drink, drinking with his face to the water, set to the other side.” Three hundred lapped with their tongues from their cupped hands. All the rest knelt to drink.
7 God said to Gideon: “I’ll use the three hundred men who lapped at the stream to save you and give Midian into your hands. All the rest may go home.”
Observation
The enemy’s army was huge – they “were spread out on the plain like a swarm of locusts…like grains of sand on the seashore!” So Gideon gathered as large an army as he could from the tribes of Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, but, compared to the army he faced, his army of 32,000 was small and would easily be overwhelmed. So, to us it would make sense to try to send out a call to battle to all of the tribes of Israel to gather more men, but, God says no. “As a matter of fact, Gideon, you have too many. When I give you victory over them, your men will think they did it and not Me.” God proceeded to reduce the fighting force down to 300, a ridiculously small force to fight the battle IF you are judging from a human perspective. Again God is crafting a miracle of deliverance for these people who in a generation or so will again forget His love and care for them. We hear over and over again in Judges how subsequent generations did evil in the sight of God, abandoning Him for false gods and doing what seems right in their own eyes. Nonetheless, this tiny band of 300 is victorious.
God’s strategy is a mystery to us. We pray and ask Him for what makes sense to us, what seems good or right or profitable in our eyes, our hearts, our experience. We try to reason out and take the shortest, wisest, most productive path to our goals – the ones we’ve determined in our hearts will please God. We look to our own plans, methods, strengths, talents and abilities to serve Him and fight against the enemy. We see Him extend mercy and grace time and time again to those we do not believe deserve it and will not profit or change by receiving it. His ways just don’t make sense to us, often seeming like the long way around or letting the guilty off easy or giving the enemy a chance to gloat over our defeat. We just don’t understand but, like Gideon, we are asked to set aside what makes sense to us in order to trust and obey. That reveals the mark of our faith, the measure of our submission.
Impact on Me
Can’t tell you how many times I have wondered, “God, what are You thinking? God, have You lost my address?” Can’t tell you how many times I have felt like Job – “I did nothing wrong. I don’t deserve to be here in this mess! Where are You?” What about, “I have a perfectly good plan here that You should bless. Why are You not on board?” I have foolishly limited God by praying for Him to accept my solution rather than asking Him for His. Or, like Gideon, mustering the support to overcome in my own plan in my own strength rather than seeking God for His strength, His plan. In these times I forget that He is working all things together for good because I love Him.
The Book of Judges is a warning. I see this pattern over and over in the Bible. Someone starts out well but ends up in a mess created by pride, hubris, greed, self-importance, rebellion and so on. I am commanded to seek first the Kingdom of God and all else will be provided for me. I need to release the need to know and understand what God is doing this moment and in this circumstance. God is more interested in building my faith than in explaining why, more interested in developing my character than in making life easy, more interested in molding and shaping a pure heart than in making me momentarily happy.
Devotion
Father God, I bow my knee to You in all of life’s joys, trials and struggles. I pray that, despite all my questions and concerns, I will be like Gideon with this battle and let God encourage me until I trust in His plan. I pray that, despite all my questions and concerns, I will be like Jesus and trust that, whatever the cost to me, the benefit to the Kingdom is worth it. I pray that, instead of asking, “Why am I here?”, I will ask, “What is it You would have me do here to accomplish Your will and purpose?” Learning to be obedient, content and expendable in God’s hands is not painless, may not make sense, and requires pride to die. I pray that I will allow the Holy Spirit to change and make me that good and faithful servant. In Jesus’ name, I pray.
