Judges 6:12-14

On Memorial Day of 2023, I woke up to a thud from our bathroom and walked in to find my husband, Ben, passed out and my floor covered in blood from a GI bleed. That event led to a three week journey of ICU rooms, countless surgical procedures and blood transfusions, and to this day, no idea what actually caused it to happen. But that event, changed everything for us. Throughout the next two years, we dealt with two moves, financial issues, job losses, career changes, and the dynamics of our family completely being changed. But through it all I learned to hear the voice of God through the noise. 

Gideon was one of the leaders in the Old Testament book of Judges called by God to lead the Israelites. When he was called by God through an angelic messenger, he was threshing wheat. Just an ordinary activity being done by a man who considered himself ordinary. But God didn’t see Gideon as ordinary. In verse 12, the angel calls Gideon a “valiant warrior.” In verse 14, Gideon receives his calling: to go forth and defeat the Midianites through the “strength he has.” The angel tells Gideon that God is sending Him” on this very important mission. In the verses after this calling, Gideon does what most of us tend to do after we receive a calling we aren’t comfortable with. He tries to out reason God. 

I told that story at the beginning because through those two years, I learned to obey God despite the fear of uncertainty and to go when God calls.  I don’t doubt that it’s God speaking to me when I hear that voice now.  However, that doesn’t always stop me from being like Gideon when that call is leading me to do something uncomfortable or something I don’t feel qualified or worthy of doing. It took me two months of interviewing for lab jobs I wasn’t hired for despite almost twenty years of experience to accept that He was calling me to walk away from it. It has taken me years to work up the nerve to lead worship despite having the desire and leading to do it. It took me six months from first hearing Him tell me to start Wild Magnolia Collective for me to even write my first blog post and publicly acknowledging that He is calling me into ministering to women. I may recognize the leading of God, but I most definitely do not have it all together.

Let’s go back to Judges for a moment. In verse 16 of the passage we looked at earlier, God tells Gideon that He will be with him in response to Gideon’s excuses why he can’t lead the Israelites.  Just like Gideon, the things God calls us to do are often uncomfortably outside of what we feel capable of. But here’s the beauty of it.. God doesn’t ask us to do what He calls us to alone. In fact, He places us in those situations that are beyond us so that we (and everyone else) know that what happens is because we are in His presence. Just like the old Footprints poem, God doesn’t just walk beside us in our weakness. He carries us when we can’t go on. We are incapable of doing what He is calling us to under our own strength and power. We can only carry out His will when we are trusting Him completely and leaning fully into Him every single step we take. 

Gideon trusted God and defeated the Midianites with a hugely outnumbered army  and not a single weapon. Talk about leaving no doubt that God carried Gideon into that victory.  God has a calling for all of us. To fulfill it, we have to leave our doubts, fears, and uncertainties at the foot of the cross and let Jesus carry us into the unknown. Only then can we answer yes when God tells us that He is sending us.