MIGHTY MAN OF VALOR

 

“And the angel of the Lord appeared to [Gideon], and said to him, ‘The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor’” (Judges 6:12, ESV). The angel uttered these words and for a moment the earth stopped in its orbit. The wind died, the birds stopped chirping, and the world went silent and still. This was an angel of heaven talking to the frightened man down in the hole in the ground and calling him a “mighty man of valor.” All of nature knew that something was going on here, because in the natural Gideon was about as far removed from being a “mighty man of valor” as one could be.

The year was about 1256 B.C. and the Midianites were making life miserable for the Jewish nation. In the roughly 200 years since Joshua had led the victorious nation into the Promised Land, Israel had turned from their wholehearted devotion to God and become stubborn, rebellious and compromised. Israel was given opportunity after opportunity to make things rights and like farm animals, they returned to the mud and grime of disobedient living.

Because of the disobedience of Israel, God allowed them to be oppressed by their enemies. Out of the desert came a raiding tribe of nomads, the Midianites. They were cruel, relentless raiders who were so persistent in devastating the Jews that they finally drove them into hiding where they lived in constant fear.

It was during this time of oppression that Gideon was in a winepress (essentially a large hole in the ground) trying to thresh enough wheat to feed his family. To thresh wheat by hand required a little wind so that as the kernels of wheat were separated from the stock, they would fall to the ground and the chaff would be blown away by the wind. A simple lesson of life is that you do not thresh wheat where there is no possibility of wind but, in fear, that is what Gideon was trying to do.

I think that when the angel uttered the words about valor, the angel had to stifle a laugh because the scene before him was not that of Davy Crockett at the Alamo or General George Patton charging up his troops for the push into Germany in WWII. It was more like Pee Wee Herman playing in a sandbox. The incongruity of the depiction of Gideon as a “mighty man of valor” and the obvious timidity and fright of the man in the winepress (hole in the ground) was startling.

When I graduated from college I had no idea where I would fit for service in God’s Kingdom. It seemed like I learned to find where God wanted me to be by listening to the no’s that came to me from heaven. Several churches extended invitations for us to join their staff but as we prayed, heaven would say, “No, that’s not for you.” Eventually an opportunity appeared that God approved and in naked obedience we responded positively. We were on our way toward what God had in store for our lives in the ministry. Of all the invitations we received, the one God told us to say yes to seemed to have the least possibility. Our yes was made in obedience and it was that act that opened the door to our future. Exactly one year later we received an invitation from David Wilkerson to move to New York and join him in his fledgling crusade ministry.

Did you know that God already has a chapter in His book on you? “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed” (Psalm 139:16, NLT). I believe there are three pictures of you in that chapter in His book. One is a picture of you before you came to Christ; one is a picture of you now and one is a picture of you in the future. The future picture is the fulfillment of what God has in mind for you and for your life as you walk in harmony with Him and His will.

When the angel stood on the edge of the hole and looked down at Pee Wee threshing wheat, covered in dust, dirt and sweat, that is not what he saw. Yes, that was what was standing in the hole but what the angel saw, by faith, was the man that God would use to lead Israel out of the pit they were in and into freedom. God didn’t need a John Wayne type who was filled with false bravado, who relied on his own strength and smarts. God wanted a man who had no confidence in his flesh and simply wanted to please the Lord. That was the man that the angel saw in the hole.

God sees us not as we are but as we can be!

“God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise.  And He chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important” (1 Corinthians 1:27-28, NLT).

That’s how God used Gideon and that means God can use me, He can use you—He can use all of us!