I wouldn't pick me, either

When you were a kid and teams were being picked, were you ever the kid who was picked last?  Nobody wants to be in that position.  If you’re picked last, you’re essentially being told that if you weren’t there, you wouldn’t have been missed.  And if you’ve ever been picked last more than once…you start to expect it. 

When you are repeatedly at the bottom, you even begin to embrace it as “your lot in life”.  You see yourself as unworthy or even useless.  In retaliation to these feelings, you may even take on the mentality once stated by Groucho Marx: “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”  So when someone actually chooses you…you reflexively don’t believe them, because bottom-level people don’t get picked for important jobs.

This is where Gideon’s story begins in Judges 6.  The nation of Israel was being kicked around by the neighboring land of Midian.  The Midianites stole Israel’s crops, destroyed the land, and took all the livestock.  This happened year after year, for seven long years, to the point that Israel was completely poverty-stricken.  Finally, the people of Israel called out to the Lord.

Judges 6:11-14
The angel of the Lord came, and he sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash, the Abiezrite.  His son Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress in order to hide it from the Midianites.  Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said: “The Lord is with you, valiant warrior.”

Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened?  And where are all His wonders that our fathers told us about?  They said, ‘Hasn’t the Lord brought us out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to Midian.”

The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and deliver Israel from the grasp of Midian.  I am sending you!”

While God doesn’t choose individuals for salvation, He does choose people, places, and things for specific service.  That’s what we’re seeing here.  At this point in the account, we might expect Gideon to get excited and finally feel validated to be chosen by God to do a great service – to be the one who rescues His people.  Instead, we see Gideon doing the opposite:

Judges 6:15
He said to Him, “Please, Lord, how can I deliver Israel?  Look, my family is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s family.”

From a society standpoint, Gideon had nothing going for him.  He didn’t have the proper linage.  The oldest son in a family was the default, next-generation leader – and Gideon was on the opposite side of that spectrum.  So when God said “Go in the strength you have and deliver Israel”, you can be certain that Gideon believed that he didn’t have enough strength to deliver anyone, let alone the entire nation!  After all, God approached Gideon while he was hiding out in order to secretly prepare food.  What “valiant warrior” sneaks around just to get his next meal?

The Lord’s answer to Gideon’s protests is the key to understanding the events that happened next. 

Judges 6:16
“But I will be with you,” the Lord said to him.  “You will strike Midian down as if it were one man.”

God reassured Gideon that he can do this work, because God will be with him.  Gideon wasn’t being sent off alone to figure it out along the way.  God would be there as well – to reassure and strengthen Gideon, as well as to fight against the Midianite army.  Like the Israelite’s stories of old, Gideon even saw several wonders (five of them, by my count), where God demonstrated that He was there and on Israel’s side.

God also promises to be with us believers in the church age.  Here are just two examples:

Matthew 28:20
And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God?  You are not your own, for you were bought at a price.  So glorify God with your body.

There is another famous verse along these lines.  While it’s famously misquoted, when it is read in context, we realize that Paul’s all things is referring to all things God has called me to do for Him:

Philippians 4:13
I am able to do all things through Him who strengthens me.

Whatever task or responsibility God has given each of us, we can be certain that He did not abandon us after handing out the assignment.  Even if we wouldn’t have chosen ourselves for this work…we are able to succeed because the Holy Spirit is in us, while Jesus promises to be with us and strengthen us.

Keep Pressing,
Ken