Once again, “the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (Judges 6:1), resulting in the Lord setting them under the oppression of the Midianites. They had to learn to do their farming in secret, because as soon as their fields began to show any crop, the Midianites would bring in all their livestock, and they would graze and trample the crop, and destroy it (6:3-6).

So the angel of the Lord came to find Gideon, as he was threshing wheat in the winepress so that the Midianites would not see what he was doing. The angel, speaking for the Lord, commissioned him to deliver Israel from the hand of Midian, and when Gideon replied that he was not the man for the job, the Lord declared “But I will be with you, and you shall strike down the Midianites” (6:11-16).

Then we get a series of vignettes: the angel of the Lord makes fire spring from the rock to burn up the offering Gideon presented; when Gideon destroyed the altar of Baal and Asherah and the townspeople wanted to kill him for it, they were stopped by the argument of his father Joash; he tried to muster an army to fight against the Midianites, and a large multitude came out to follow him; he requested that God put dew on the fleece but not on the ground, and then he requested that God put dew on the ground, but not on the fleece (6:21-40).

That is: the call of God came to Gideon, with the presence of an angel and specific words; he saw a miracle of fire; he was protected from a lynch mob: and he still didn’t want to believe it was really God commissioning him. So he specified the test of the dew on the fleece, and when God gave him that sign, he specified the test in the other direction, and God gave him that sign, too. This is not the story of a hero of astonishing faith: it is the story of an ordinary man, frightened by the prospect of leading the troops into battle, trying so hard to convince himself that he hadn’t really been called by God.

* * * * *

We, too, are often timid, Lord. We want to believe in you, but we are also afraid of what you might want from us. We pray for discernment; we pray for courage; we pray for the grace to take the actions you call us to do.

If you find these studies helpful, please Like, Subscribe, Comment, and Share. Thanks!