Scripture Daily

Context No. 1983 of 4322 · Judges

Context · Reflection

Judges 6:7-12: in context

7When the children of Israel cried to the LORD because of Midian, 8The LORD sent a prophet to the children of Israel; and he said to them, “The LORD, the God of Israel, says, ‘I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you out of the house of bondage. 9I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out from before you, and gave you their land. 10I said to you, “I am the LORD your God. You shall not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.” But you have not listened to my voice.’” 11The LORD’s angel came and sat under the oak which was in Ophrah, that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite. His son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites. 12The LORD’s angel appeared to him, and said to him, “The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!”

When Israel cries out under the oppression of Midian, God first sends a prophet to remind them of their deliverance from Egypt and their disobedience. Then the angel of the LORD comes and sits under an oak, where Gideon is threshing wheat in a winepress, hiding it from the Midianites. And the angel greets him with startling words: the LORD is with you, you man of valor. Gideon, hiding in fear, is addressed as a warrior, as one of courage and strength.

There is a striking gap between what Gideon is at that moment and what the angel calls him. At that moment, Gideon is a frightened man, hiding, threshing his wheat in a winepress to keep it from the enemy, cowering rather than fighting. And the angel greets him as a man of valor, a warrior, one of courage and might. It seems almost ironic, addressed to a man in hiding. But it is not irony; it is God addressing Gideon not according to what he is now, but according to what God will make of him. God sees and calls forth the potential he intends to bring out, the warrior Gideon will become, not the frightened man he now is. There is deep encouragement here in how God sees and addresses us. We know ourselves as we are now, often fearful, weak, hiding, far from what we ought to be; and we assume God sees us the same way, defined by our present failures and fears. But God addresses us according to what he will make of us, calls forth the potential he intends to draw out, sees not only the frightened man in the winepress but the deliverer he will become. God's calling is not limited by our present reality; it looks to what he will make of us by his grace. He chose the weak things of the world, Paul says, and the things that are despised, to accomplish his purposes; if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. God does not define us by who we are now, but calls us toward, and will make of us, what we could not become on our own. This should change how we hear God's calling and how we see ourselves. When God calls us to something that seems far beyond who we are, we may feel, like Gideon in the winepress, that he has the wrong person, that we are no warriors. But God addresses us according to what he will make us, not according to our present fear and weakness; and the man of valor he called Gideon, Gideon by God's grace became. We are not fixed as what we are now; God calls us toward what he will make of us, and his calling sees the potential his grace will bring forth, beyond the frightened person hiding in the winepress.

Do I define myself by who I am now, often fearful, weak, and far from what I ought to be, assuming God sees me the same way, or can I take encouragement from how God greeted the hiding Gideon as a man of valor, that God addresses me not according to my present fear and weakness but according to what he will make of me by his grace?

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