God knows how to make ways possible for those who put their trust in Him. He favors those who believe in Him. When you are faithful to the Father, He will allow more to come to you. You may feel like you are not worthy enough to be used by God, or even worthy enough to come to God. You may look around you and it looks as if God is working in the lives of others, but when it comes to you, He passes you by. Trust me when I tell you that if you surrender to the Father and put your trust in Him, He will be able to lead you and give you the victory the way He did for Gideon.
Judges 6-7 introduce us to Gideon and highlight his victory for God’s people. Gideon is a story about being courageous. It is a story about being faithful during the worst of times. He was afraid because of what was going on around him. He, along with the rest of the children of Israel, was surrounded by enemies. When the children of Israel started lusting after other gods (building false idols and places to worship them), God allowed His anger to be released upon them by releasing them over to the ones who despised them.
The Midianites and the Amalekites invaded the Israelites’ territory daily and destroyed their crops, and livestock- leaving nothing for the children of Israel. This was a vicious cycle for the children of Israel: they would grow their crops, feed, and raise their livestock and their enemies would come along and destroy their crops and slaughter their animals. They were persecuted by the Midianites and the Amalekites so much to the point that the Israelites endured this hardship for seven years. You may have been or are currently in a similar situation like this. It seems like the moment when everything is going well in your life, the enemy comes along, takes over, and destroys everything that you are trying to produce, grow, or manifest. Because of these ongoing circumstances, the children of Israel ran away and hid themselves in caves that were in the mountains.
During this time, God sent an angel to speak to Gideon and to assure him that he was going to lead the children of Israel to victory. But not all of us are initially cooperative when God speaks to us or when He uses others to speak to us. How do we show that we do not agree? That’s right, we make excuses. We complain. We come up with a nice laundry list as to why we can’t do what God is calling us to do- this was the case with Gideon. God was about to prove to Gideon, the Israelites, and especially their enemies that by the time this whole thing was over, everybody will know that it is because of Him, that the results turned out the way they did. God wanted Gideon to rely on Him, and not his own strength.
God told Gideon to tell all of the Israelites who were afraid to battle against their enemies to go home. After Gideon spoke this, 22, 000 people left Mount Gilead, and 10,000 remained. After the vast majority left, God told Gideon that he still had too many men with him to defeat the Midianites so God told Gideon to bring the Israelites down to the water so that He could test them. God wanted Gideon to separate those who bowed to their knees to drink water from those who lapped water like a dog. All the men who bowed down to drink had to leave, but the ones who lapped could stay. This only left 300 men to defeat hundreds of thousands of Midianites, only 300!
As Gideon prepared the men to fight, he set the 300 men into three companies and told them to watch and do as he does. The only “weapons” the Israelites had were trumpets, jars, and torches, that’s it. God did not send them into battle with weapons of destruction, He sent them into battle with faith as their source of defense.
Gideon wanted the Israelites to follow him as he followed God so that the victory would surely be won. Before reaching the edge of the Midianites’ camp, He had very specific yet simple instructions he wanted them to follow. There are going to be some things God may tell you to do that may not make any sense to you at all whatsoever, but if you do what He tells you after it is over, you will then see that it made all of the sense in the world. Don’t allow your finite mind to miss out on all that an infinite God has for you to do by not heeding Him.
Gideon tells the companies to blow their trumpets when they hear him and the men who are with him blow theirs. Gideon also wanted the companies to yell, “For the Lord and for Gideon.” When Gideon and the men who were with him reached the edge of the camp, they blew their trumpets and smashed their jars. When the three companies heard the sound of their brethren, they too blew their trumpets and smashed the jars that were in their hands, and yelled, “For the Lord and Gideon!” This strategic planning startled the Midianites so bad, that they ran. Hundreds of thousands of Midianites ran from 300 Israelites and to make the victory taste even sweeter, the Midianites turned against each other with their own swords so there was no need for the Israelites to kill them- the Midianites did a good job of that on their own!
But the Father has a way of doing that, doesn’t He? He will do exactly what was spoken of Him in Deuteronomy 28:7 (NIV) where it says, “The Lord will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction, but flee from you in seven.” God is not a God of the past, He’s a right now God. Just like He came to the rescue of Gideon and these 300 men, He will come to your rescue as well. As long as you keep the faith in Him, He will never allow you to be defeated. There may be times when you feel like you are, but you not-always believe that.
My prayer is that you will allow the Father to lead you when it seems impossible. That you will let Him show you and prove to you that He is the God who will be there for you in your time of need. That you will allow God to do what needs to be done through you to lead your heart to Him. That you will know that the Father is with you along this journey and because of that, you will be more than ready to walk in your victory. Trust in God and believe that it is so in Jesus’ Name, Amen.
