What Do You Have in Your Hands?
Last week I wrote about the power of grace in your life. That free gift, that unmerited favor of God. As you invite Jesus to be in the center of your life, you are able to discover who you truly are and what gifts God has given you and this opens up the endless possibilities for a life of wide open expansiveness.
Have you ever had one of those moments of true clarity that brings with it a newfound courage? Maybe a time when an experience brought out boldness that wasn’t there before. I had one of those many years ago and it changed the way I viewed myself forever.
Bud and I owned restaurants for close to 30 years. During a particularly tough season, we decided to bring in a consultant to help us discover what our strengths and weaknesses were; where we were making money and where we were bleeding money. So this slick guy in a suit showed up at our restaurant on the first day and immediately the red flags went up. He was a fast talker, jumping from subject to subject, all the while assuring us mere mortals that he was here to save the day. Now if you’ve spent any amount of time with either Bud or I, you’ll soon discover that we wear our feelings on our face, so to speak. We would be awful at poker. There’s no point in trying to hide our emotions; they’re on full display in our expressions.
So this guy must’ve gotten the hint that he was not making us feel comforted by his constant barrage of arrogant words and began to finally listen. He had the sense to realize that this wasn’t going to work unless he started to actually ask who we were, what we wanted and what made us tick. Relieved by this turn of events, we told him over coffee that what we really wanted, what really mattered to us was our family, the people who worked for us and God. He made us finally feel relaxed enough to open up about our dreams. That was a mistake.
We told him that we dreamed of doing missionary work around the world, all while building our businesses that would fund these endeavors. After almost a week of going over our systems and practices, he sat down with us again to go over what he thought would be our business salvation plan. That was HIS mistake.
He proceeded to belittle us about what we were doing wrong and how we needed to treat our employees less like family and more like the underlings they were. Second mistake.
And then came the deciding blow. He told us that the way we were running our business, we would never ever see our dream of doing ministry come true; that we could forget that aspiration and move on to something else. Only under his brilliant plan, he said, would we ever see the dreams we had for our son, our family and ourselves come to pass.
I wish we had cameras in the restaurant that day because I would have loved to capture the expression on our faces. Whatever they were, he backed up and fear crept across his face. My face flushed, my heart starting racing and my mouth went dry. He was smart enough to leave at that moment, promising to come back the next day for our reactions and to discuss how we would proceed with this brilliant plan.
I can’t describe fully the rage that was building inside of me. I literally had to go home. This man had basically reduced all of our dreams to nothing, declaring that he and only he was going to save us; that the dreams we had for Danny, the prayers we had for our employees were denied. Up until that point, I lived with so many insecurities and always felt small in the presence of someone like this guy. Once safely at home, I remember starting to cry out of just complete frustration; frustrated that I allowed some stranger to belittle me and my dreams; frustrated that I opened up my heart and shared it with this person who tossed it aside; frustrated that he might be right.
Up until this point I would have conceded that, because I was uneducated, that man had the right to speak to me like that. Up until that point. Something snapped inside of me and all those years of being told I wasn’t enough, I had nothing to offer was about to take an abrupt turn.
I sat down and wrote a scathing letter to this man and his boss about this experience and the audacity of what was said to us. All of that rage was channeled into those words. I mean I was using words I had never even heard of before; pretty sure I made some up. And something in me changed that day forever. I found my voice. Never was someone going to belittle my dreams and make me feel that they were in control of them instead of God. Let’s just say that the email response and the proceeding meeting with this guy was a complete turn around from our last meeting. He told us that he almost got fired over it and apologized for using those intimate details of our life to leverage power over us. And now the family joke when we need someone to fight some injustice, they all call me to write the offending party!
And that bring us back to the story of Gideon. Gideon was this young farmer who was used to hiding, being told that his tribe and family were insignificant. That he was insignificant. And then one day God sent an angel who addressed him as a warrior. In my mind’s eye, I can see God sending His Holy Spirit to guide me as I wrote that letter, calling out in me that warrior. It wasn’t about putting that consultant in his place. It was about not letting someone take from me what God had placed in me.
As Gideon’s story continues, we see the transformation happen in him quickly as he allows God to draw out of him those strengths.
So the angel has told him that he was chosen to defeat Israel’s greatest enemy at the time, the Midianites. Gideon had his doubts and he put God through a series of tests, asking Him to prove that He was speaking to him, which God did.
So we see as we continue in Judges 6 in verse
25 That same night the Lord said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. 26 Then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering.”
We see how God is beginning to draw out that courage. Now Baal was a false god that so many of the Israelites had embraced when they turned their backs on the true God. Many of them, including Gideon’s father, had an altar and pole where they prayed and brought offerings to this imaginary god. But God asked Gideon to deny the power of Baal by cutting down the pole that was used to worship him. History has it that the judges God wanted to appoint were to come from each tribe, including the one that Gideon belonged to, Mannaseh, but we see that Gideon’s father was overlooked for that honor because he worshiped Baal openly. I have to wonder, since it’s not clearly said in these verses, if Gideon was against that practice and what God saw in him, even though he was seen as a scared young farm boy, was exactly what He described him as. A warrior. Someone who would not bow down to a false god.
Gideon found the courage to do this but he waited until it got dark. Baby steps. And it’s interesting to note that God didn’t call him out on that either. He knows where we are weak and can work with what we give Him.
So Gideon obeyed and took 10 of his servants and did just as the angel of the Lord had told him to do.
The theologian, Matthew Henry said Gideon was a man of a brave spirit, but he was buried in a life of obscurity.
You may feel at times that you, too, are buried in obscurity. Maybe at a job where you are overlooked often or a stay at home mom that can’t see past the mountain of laundry that you face daily or the seemingly least in your family that never gets recognition. But God is inviting you into a life of adventure if you will follow!
Now it’s important to understand that this act of pulling down his father’s altar to the false god Baal, wasn’t going to be viewed as some childish prank. Gideon was taking his life into his hands by doing so. It publicly defied his father to all his townspeople and was going to cost him his life. But watch the transformation from a cowardly farmer to a warrior for God.
28 In the morning when the people of the town got up, there was Baal’s altar, demolished, with the Asherah pole beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar!
29 They asked each other, “Who did this?”
When they carefully investigated, they were told, “Gideon son of Joash did it.”
Gideon may have done the deed under the cover of night but something happened as he tore down that altar. With each board that he broke apart, with each step of obedience, he found strength and courage that was lying dormant in his heart. Tradition has it that each morning, instead of looking up to God, the One who always been there for them, the men in this town would rise up early and gather to pray to Baal. So Gideon didn’t hide from what he had done. He was waiting for them. There was no way to conceal that it was he that did this unbelievable act. They soon discovered that Gideon had courageously said by his actions, “God is the only One who should be worshipped!” What gave him that courage? A personal encounter with God.
As the story goes on we see that Gideon’s father steps up and defends him when the towns people demand Gideon be put to death. God used young Gideon to bring honor back into his father’s house and to bring his father back to God.
Now let’s get to the main event; the battle scene.
33 Now all the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples joined forces and crossed over the Jordan and camped in the Valley of Jezreel. 34 Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him. 35 He sent messengers throughout Manasseh, calling them to arms, and also into Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali, so that they too went up to meet them.
This is not the same guy we saw cowering in a winepress. Gideon finally realized that God had given him strength and courage he didn’t know he had in him. If I had had a trumpet as I sat to write that letter, I would have blown it for all to hear! For Gideon, it was a declaration. A declaration of war! He was tired of living a life of obscurity and was ready to grow into God’s description of him.
When we step out into God’s purpose for our life, we unearth courage and power AND purpose we didn’t realize was ours. The truth is that this courage was there all along.
So as we finish up Gideon’s story I want to give you a few practical truths for your journey of discovering your gifts through God’s grace.
1. You don’t have to figure out God’s purpose and gifts for your life on your own.
Ephesians 2:8-10
8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
God sees your beginning, He sees your end and everything in between. He has a plans for you to do great things, both big and small. He already knows what your gifts are so why would He make us figure them out on our own? We are His masterpiece. Each of uniquely created to do good things for Him.
But when we pursue an identity apart from God, it leads to confusion. The more you understand that your identity as a believer is in Christ, you will start to see your place in His kingdom and in this life He has given you. God is calling us, by name, to participate in this wide-open life He has prepared for us.
Gideon allowed God to unearth that potential in him. When we surrender our lives to Him, He is able and more than willing to walk us through the journey of discovering those purposes. We are not left to figure them out on our own.
So we see as we continue in Judges chapter 7 that the day has come for the battle but God is about to throw a wrench in Gideon’s idea of what is to come. He has now put God through two tests to prove that God will actually do what He said He will. He’s fresh on the heels of a victory of tearing down Baal’s altar and living to tell the tale. And things get a little weird.
Judges chapter 7 goes on to say
7 Early in the morning, Gideon and all his men camped at the spring of Harod. The camp of Midian was north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh. 2 The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’ 3 Now announce to the army, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’” So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.
Can you picture Gideon’s face? 22,000 men look at each other and say “Nope, peace out and leave.” Gideon can’t be feeling too confident at this point. And it gets worse. Now here is one the weirdest things I’ve ever read in the Bible.
4 But the Lord said to Gideon, “There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will thin them out for you there.
5 So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the Lord told him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues as a dog laps from those who kneel down to drink.” 6 Three hundred of them drank from cupped hands, lapping like dogs. All the rest got down on their knees to drink.
7 The Lord said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the others go home.”
Say what? Now by this time Gideon is probably calculating in is head what the next test for God is going to be because it’s not looking too good.
But that courage had been activated. Like Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible movies God has said, “Gideon, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to face your fate, defeat the Midianites, rescue your nation and return them to Me!” Gideon had listened to the instructions, accepted the mission and the recording melted and blow up. There was no turning back.
8 So Gideon sent the rest of the Israelites home but kept the three hundred, who took over the provisions and trumpets of the others.
What will Gideon do with the gifts or the help that he is left with. That leads us to the next truth.
2. The key to the future you hope for is found in being faithful with the gifts God has given you.
Gideon didn’t always trust God on this journey of discovery. As we read, he questioned Him over and over again. But once he saw what God could do in and with him, he was able to walk trusting God into his future. There was nothing about this situation of being left with only 300 men to fight an entire nation that would evoke confidence. But Gideon chose to be faithful with what God gave him.
Judges goes on in chapter 7 to say:
Now the camp of Midian lay below him in the valley. 9 During that night the Lord said to Gideon, “Get up, go down against the camp, because I am going to give it into your hands. 10 If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah 11 and listen to what they are saying. Afterward, you will be encouraged to attack the camp.” So he and Purah his servant went down to the outposts of the camp. 12 The Midianites, the Amalekites and all the other eastern peoples had settled in the valley, thick as locusts. Their camels could no more be counted than the sand on the seashore.
13 Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a friend his dream. “I had a dream,” he was saying. “A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.”
14 His friend responded, “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.”
15 When Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he bowed down and worshiped. He returned to the camp of Israel and called out, “Get up! The Lord has given the Midianite camp into your hands.”
For the first time in his young life, Gideon heard from others what God saw in him. He was a warrior.
16 Dividing the three hundred men into three companies, he placed trumpets and empty jars in the hands of all of them, with torches inside.
17 “Watch me,” he told them. “Follow my lead. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly as I do. 18 When I and all who are with me blow our trumpets, then from all around the camp blow yours and shout, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon.’”
19 Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guard. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars that were in their hands. 20 The three companies blew the trumpets and smashed the jars. Grasping the torches in their left hands and holding in their right hands the trumpets they were to blow, they shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” 21 While each man held his position around the camp, all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled.
22 When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords.
Gideon thought he would have to fight his enemies to walk in his purpose but God had other plans.
Gideon led this small army of 300 men against their biggest enemy, the Midianites, the ones he was hiding from initially. They didn’t even need to fight. They obeyed what God instructed and the Midianites were so confused, they killed each other!
So what was that all about? What was the purpose of that whole experience? God was laying the foundation for Gideon to go to be one of the greatest judges in the nation of Israel. He used Gideon’s obedience to deliver the nation of Israel out of the hands of their enemies but He wasn’t going to let Gideon go back to a life of obscurity. He had other plans.
God had to show Gideon what was inside of him.
You see, being a judge was a great honor. They were special leaders that God raised up during this time period to rescue His people. The judges did not oversee merely legal matters, as in our sense of the role; their tasks often included military and administrative authority as well.
The pattern of behavior in the book of Judges is clear: the people rebelled through idolatry and disbelief, God brought judgment through foreign oppression, God raised up a deliverer—or judge, and the people repented and turned back to God. When the people fell back into sin, the cycle started over again.
It’s important to note that these great men and women that were called were all flawed in so many ways. That’s important for us to understand when we feel inadequate to do great things for God.
God was preparing Gideon for this important task that take courage, wisdom and trust in Him. He took a scared farmer and transformed him into a leader of millions.
And that brings us to our last truth.
3. We are called to reflect God’s glory through our purpose.
2 Corinthians 3:18 describes how as believers, we become like mirrors who brightly reflect the glory of Jesus. Paul says in this verse that we are being changed into His image as we move from level to another.
Gideon’s journey from pulling down that altar of Baal, standing up to the popular voice of the people who forgot God, finding courage to sound the call to war, stepping into that role of leadership of those men, all of that was in preparation for the tremendous responsibility of being a judge.
Your journey will be similar to that of Gideon’s. Every step will bring more experience, new understanding, wisdom and insight and courage. That scripture we read in 2 Corinthians says that we move from glory to glory. Deeper and deeper understanding of God’s amazing grace brings a stronger understanding of who He has created you to be. Each experience will build on each other. I’ve always believed that it is not the destination but the journey that is most important to God.
But we have to see God’s image reflected in us if we truly want to understand our unique blueprint for identity. Science and Scripture both show you are uniquely designed. But how can you reflect His glory if you cannot see it in you?
How do we see God’s glory in us? By spending time in His presence. One encounter with God changed Gideon’s life forever.
As you discover your purposes through the grace of God:
--the more gifts, skills and abilities will develop
--the more your mental health will improve
--the more your physical health will improve
--the more you will find joy in your life
--the more you will see others through the eyes of God
--the more humble you will be
--the more you will come to understand yourself and those around you
--the more you will celebrate others instead of envying them
I challenge you with this. Spend time in God’s presence. Read your Bible, our instruction book, our love letters from Him, our guide and our truth. Create opportunities to worship Him privately. And pray, talk, meditate, listen, write down those thoughts and prayers and learn to discern His voice and His leading. Find those things that bring you passion, that move you to action. Learn new things, discover new interests. And all along the way, invite God to be right there in the middle of it.
