April 2010

I was encouraged in my devotion time as I read the story of Gideon from Judges 6-8. It was a really down time for the nation of Israel due to their disobedience. They had not obeyed the Lord to drive out the inhabitants of the Promised Land when they conquered it. Those they left came back to antagonize them as well as fight them and defeat God‘s people because they had not obeyed God. In his grace God provided a number of judges who would lead Israel to a temporary victory.

One of those judges was Gideon. The Midianites were a people that Israel was supposed to have destroyed. They did not and the Midianites brought an army of 135,000 to fight against Israel. Gideon had an army of 30,000. How do you like those odds? God told Gideon that his army was too large. Judges 7:2 says, "The Lord said to Gideon, 'The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand lest Israel boast over me saying, "My own hand has saved me."'" So all who were afraid were sent home. 20,000 went home so now there were 10,000 against 135,000. How do you like those odds?

God said, "There are still too many." So they devised a means to find the smallest group they could find and Gideon ended up with an army of 300 against 135,000 Midianites. In addition the "army" of Gideon went into the battle not with traditional weapons swords and spears but with trumpets and flashlights instead. If you were going to pray for victory in that battle, how would you pray?

It struck me that the box of options that we bring to prayer would not have included the option that the army of the Midianites would fight and kill each other. We would never think of that as an option. But that was how God delivered the victory to Gideon and his army. In Exodus, with the Egyptian army approaching from behind and the Red Sea in front of Israel, who ever would have thought that it was an option to go forward and the Red Sea would divide and allow them to cross on dry ground only to return and drown the enemy?