Gideon: A Study, Part 3

Welcome back!  If you are new to our study, we’re in the midst of learning about our weakness through God’s strength in Priscilla Shirer’s study of Gideon.

As we walk through the workbook, we are working through the second week of lessons and some of you that are more on schedule may have already heard Priscilla’s third audio session.

There is so much that I love out of this study but in Day 4 of Week 2’s homework, Priscilla shares this when talking about the Angel’s first encounter with Gideon as he was hiding and threshing wheat in the wine press and the Angel called him a “mighty warrior”:  Gideon didn’t have the look of a “mighty man of valor.”  Cowering silently in the winepress, Gideon felt and looked like anything other than valiant.  Nobody would have described this man with our Hebrew term.  But Yahweh’s view was not bound by Gideon’s reality or actions.  Gideon may have been under the shadow of Midian, but Yahweh was not.  He could see beyond the exterior, calling out of Gideon something that the timid man probably didn’t even realize was in him.  Gideon wasn’t a scared farmer.  Not really.  That’s how he was behaving, but that’s not who he was. 

Wow.

No matter what you are in the middle of, fear, addiction, anxiety, poverty, sickness, infertility, loneliness, that is NOT WHO YOU ARE.  God is not bound by your current reality or your behavior.  He is not bound by it and you are not bound to it.

He sees who you are and who He has called to be and what your potential is.  No matter if you are cowering in the winepress today, the God of Creation comes before you calling you by your true name and labeling you with the design He has for you.

Week Two’s homework starts off with a look at the Angel’s appearance.  You’ll notices in Judges 6 that first the Angel came and sat under the oak tree and THEN the Angel appeared to Gideon.

Why is this important?  Well, because Gideon didn’t notice the Angel when he first appeared.  He sat there.  Just as Gideon was going about his daily business.  I think so often people have this image of God appearing with a bullhorn and thunderclap.  But I have found, and Gideon certainly illustrates, that it is in the simple day to day happenings that God comes with a message if we are just sensitive enough to pick up on His arrival.  It could be simply shopping for boots or threshing wheat in a winepress, but God shows up.

Then, in Day 2 of the homework, we see that God used Gideon’s every day work to groom him for his ultimate calling.  What would Gideon be called to do?  He would be called to separate his people from the destruction and decay of their oppressors.  God gave Gideon the job of separating the wheat from the chaff in order to “paint some above-ground imagery for Gideon and us to see.”

Whatever you are in the midst of today, God may be using your simple every day tasks to prepare you for the greater things He has in store.

I warned you that there might be a few weeks when I wouldn’t be able to finish the study that week.  This is one of those instances.  In Houston, we have had TWO days of school closure (last Friday and this Tuesday) because of the “Icepocalypse of 2014” as Melanie Shankle calls it.  Today was totally unnecessary but nonetheless I’ve not been able to get into work because of the kids’ school being out and no nanny so I’m just running a little behind.  Next week, we will take up the rest of Days 4 and 5 of Week 2 as well as Session 3 and then hopefully be back on track.  Thanks for your grace friend.  Motherhood is a little unpredictable.  (But maybe God is using that as training, right?)