I love studying the life of Gideon in my bible. The older I get the more attracted I am to learning from the biblical narratives which reveal the days, months and years of individuals who followed God. Gideon was a very unlikely hero and, perhaps because of his underdog status, many have benefitted from his story over the centuries. Gideon once came to a fork in the road which all believers eventually encounter. God was calling Gideon to something that outweighed him. Gideon was going to be stretched by the Almighty. The greatest among us must come to understand what they are not. In order to experience fullness in the Lord, you must come to recognize that you have none of your own lasting goodness to offer up. When the Apostle Paul declared that there dwelt nothing good in his flesh he was not simply giving an “Aw shucks” speech. Paul was saying that, apart from Christ, he had no redeeming value. The great servant of the Lord looked in the mirror of spiritual reality and concluded that he was hollow and desperately needed to be filled by God and with God. He was not defeated but, rather, on a course to victory when he determined, like Gideon, that he was insufficient on his own. How do people come to such a humbling conclusion?
First, those people have sensed the vastness and holiness of God. His immensity has swallowed forever their sense of self-love, self-reliance and self-assertion. When one visits the Grand Canyon he redefines his sense of what it means to be big. Nothing will ever stun him as do the immense depths of that wondrous sight. Before that moment his house might have seemed big, a skyscraper may have appeared big or a towering oak may have been classified as big. Then he stands on the north rim of the Grand Canyon and very little seems big anymore – except that wonder of nature he is beholding. In far greater reality, when one comes into a life changing encounter with the Great God of Eternity, he is now ruined for this world. Everything less than God loses its appeal. This includes one’s estimation of his own worth. To experience God on this level is to die in the deepest sense of the term. We still breathe, but we are dead to trusting in our own power. We still think, but we assert that only thoughts from Him will have lasting value. We speak daily but our words are sounding brass and tinkling cymbal if they offer no glory for Christ or, at the very least, are not spoken in the context of His preiminence. We may accomplish things but they melt when we meditate on what Christ accomplished on our behalf at Calvary… and three days later at the vacated tomb. We, like Gideon, wonder, ‘Oh, my Lord, how can I do what you have placed me here to do as I believe myself to be the least in my Father’s household?’
“Oh my Lord, how shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house. And the LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with you, and you will defeat the Midianites as one man.” – Judges 6:15-16
The answer has not changed: “Surely,” God says, “I will be with you.”
God does not leave us dead after our encounters with Him. He slays the unprofitable parts of us but raises us again with infused light and power where that which has now died once resided. Mark it down, our lives are and will continue to be filled with something. We are born to contain and to spill. God empties us of unprofitable material and we become dead to it. However, He will never leave us empty. In the absence of fleshly trusts, goals, offerings and shadows, our great God pipes in lasting substance from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit brings this life. The Holy Spirit devours the flesh. The Holy Spirit manifests the victory of Christ in us. Forego the relentless appetites for the temporary in this world and esteem the riches of Christ more necessary than your daily food. Go in the strength of that meat until your victory which is secured in Heaven manifests itself on earth. Die and then live. Be buried to the lesser and raised again to the greatest. No longer avoid the graves of the temporary because, if you do not bury things there, you will continue to carry them in your heart. He has something better for you on the other side of your dying to self. This has always been His plan for His people and you must go where the greats have gone before you.
Gideon’s question to God was how the final victory would be gained. God’s answer was that His abiding presence was all Gideon needed. He stated without fanfare and with perfect certainty to Gideon, “I… will… be… with…you.” The self-assertive, self-confident, and self-reliant will ask, “Yeah, but what ELSE BESDIES THAT, God?”
Here is the answer to them: