THE LORD IS WITH YOU MIGHTY WARRIOR"

As I am wading through Judges, my most unfavorable book of the Bible other than dear Leviticus, I keep looking for a hero to emerge.  I am so grateful for even a Gideon.  How I can identify with him before the fight:  insecure, inferior, fearful, and questioning.  The angel spoke, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior."  Can't you just see Gideon looking around to see who is speaking to him and who would say something so absurd considering Gideon's self perception.  I find it so foolish that knowing what God speaks is Truth about me, but how often I move into well practiced lying self-talk.  Could it be that I have practiced lies so long that even the words of the ALMIGHTY are powerless?  

I can give Gideon grace.  He did not have Scripture and the indwelling Holy Spirit .  His experiences were real because his nation was being ravaged by the Midianites and the Amalekites. He had reasons to be fearful as he hunkered down in the winepress to thresh his wheat.  Threshing wheat required a high place to utilize the winds to separate the wheat and the chaff.  Because the Midianites were always watching to steal food and cattle, Gideon furtively worked and hoped to be unobserved.  

It looks to me that I have flimsy excuses for believing my self-talk even with the indwelling Holy Spirit to teach, guide, correct, reveal, and give me recall of Truths from Scripture about me.  As I read the passages in Judges 6-7, I love how Gideon was willing to be obedient with the astronomical odds of 450 to 1 against him.  With the LORD, 300 men, broken lighted jars of oil for light, and trumpets, the Midianites were defeated. God had promised, "I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together."  I am challenged today:  to be obedient, to be a risk taker, to TRUST HIS promises, and to be "More than a conqueror through Christ Jesus who loved me and gave HIMSELF for me."  So fight on, Brave Warrior!

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