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Context No. 1710 of 4322 · Judges

Context · Reflection

Judges 6:13-18: in context

13Gideon said to him, “Oh, my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, ‘Didn’t the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has cast us off, and delivered us into the hand of Midian.” 14The LORD looked at him, and said, “Go in this your might, and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Haven’t I sent you?” 15He said to him, “O Lord, how shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” 16The LORD said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.” 17He said to him, “If now I have found favor in your sight, then show me a sign that it is you who talk with me. 18Please don’t go away until I come to you, and bring out my present, and lay it before you.” He said, “I will wait until you come back.”

The angel of the LORD has greeted Gideon as a man of valor, but Gideon answers with a lament: if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened, and where are the wonders our fathers told us of? God does not debate him; he simply commissions him: go in the strength you have and save Israel; have I not sent you? Gideon protests his inadequacy, his clan has no standing in Manasseh, and he is a nobody in his own family. And God answers, not by disputing it, but with a promise: surely I will be with you.

Gideon's protest is one many of us would make: how can I possibly do this? He points to his insignificance, his clan of no account, his own lowly place in his family; by every measure he can see, he is the wrong person for the task, too small, too weak, too unimportant. And notice how God answers him. God does not argue that Gideon is actually strong, or talented, or significant; he does not flatter him or build up his self-image. God's answer to Gideon's inadequacy is not a claim about Gideon at all, but a promise about himself: surely I will be with you. The qualification for the task was never Gideon's strength; it was God's presence. This is how God tends to answer the sense of our own inadequacy. When we say, I am not enough for this, I am too small, too weak, too unqualified, we are often right; and God does not usually respond by telling us we are more capable than we think. He responds by promising his presence: I will be with you. The task does not depend on our adequacy but on his being with us; and his presence, not our strength, is what makes the difference. This frees us from two errors at once: from the pride that thinks we can do it in our own strength, and from the despair that thinks we cannot do it at all. Both look only at ourselves; God points to himself. Gideon was right that he was inadequate, and it did not matter, because God would be with him. The same promise meets us when God asks of us what we feel too small to do: not you are enough, but I will be with you.

When God asks something of me that I feel too small and inadequate to do, do I answer only by looking at myself, in pride thinking I can manage alone or in despair thinking I cannot manage at all, or can I hear God's answer to Gideon, not you are enough, but I will be with you, and find in his presence rather than my strength the qualification for the task?

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