I was reading about the calling of Gideon this morning in Judges 6. Of how he was threshing wheat, while hiding in a wine press, so that the Midinanites couldn’t see the harvest. The Midinanites are referred to as being like swarms of locusts. For those who are not familiar with the story, I always have flash backs to the great Disney/Pixar film ‘A Bug’s Life’, where the locusts turn up every year at harvest time to devour the crops. The locusts are bigger and stronger than the ants and due to this repetitive annual cycle, the ants learn to live with it an accept that the best they can do is hide away a meagre portion of food to hopefully sustain themselves throughout the rest of the year.
Back to the Bible story. Gideon is told “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” I was encouraged that God called and eventually used Gideon, who described himself as the least of the least, to defeat their enemy. Not only that, here was a man who despite having talked face to face with the angel of the Lord, he still need reassurance and confirmation and twice put out his fleece. Maybe despite my insecurities and need for the occasional pat on the back, God will fulfil His promises to us!
Chapter 7 starts with Gideon and 32,000 Israelite soldiers camped ready to face the enemy. How did he suddenly go from being a scared ‘ant’ threshing his families wheat in secret; a man who was the least in his family and whose clan was the least in their tribe? Well, towards the end of chapter 6 we read about how Gideon was instructed to tear down the altar to Baal and the Asherah pole and to use the wood to sacrifice a bull to the Lord. The whole village had stopped trusting in the Lord and had turned to worshiping the gods of the locals! Gideon took some of his families servants and did this at night. In the hope that no one would know who’d done it, but he was seen! So in the morning when an angry crowd demanded that Gideon should be killed. Gideon’s father stands up for him and says that if Baal is a real god, that he would be able to defend his own altar and punish those responsible. When Gideon is still alive and well the next day, it’s obvious to people that the Lord is with him. The story would have soon got around, that here was a man who wasn’t afraid to stand up against the prevailing culture, to go against the flow, a man who believed the word of the Lord.
The story has challenges for each of us. What repetitive destructive cycles have we accepted in our lives? What altars have we been seduced into worshiping at, due to societies pressure for us to conform? Are we prepared to cut down the idols in our lives, to enable us to follow the call on our lives? Are we prepared to make a stand and go against the tide of society. Are we prepared for those around us to see who we follow?
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