Friday, March 20

Scripture: Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you.” (Judges 6:14).

Observation: So begins the story of a judge named Gideon. Gideon repeatedly doubts God’s calling on his life. Gideon doesn’t simply have doubts about his calling; he tells his doubts directly to God, essentially telling God that God picked the wrong guy to save Israel. The nation needs saving because the Midianites have invaded Israel and made several of the northern tribes, including Gideon’s tribe of Manasseh, subjects of the Midianites. God chooses Gideon to lead the Israelites in battle to drive out the Midianites, but Gideon doesn’t believe he’s fit for the job and goes so far as to put God to the test, in essence daring God to prove that God is right in calling him. First, Gideon makes the messenger of the Lord stay for dinner as a way of proving that the messenger is not a figment of Gideon’s imagination. Then Gideon tells God that if Gideon were to lay a fleece of wool on the ground, and in the morning the fleece is wet with dew but the ground below it is dry, then Gideon would believe God. God passes the test. Then Gideon tells God that if Gideon were to lay a fleece of wool on the ground, and in the morning the fleece is dry but the ground beneath it is wet with dew, then Gideon would believe God. God passes the test again. Gideon doubts his calling up to the very day of battle against the Midianites, when one of the soldiers tells Gideon that God gave the solider a dream of the tents of the Midianite army turned upside-down and collapsing. When Gideon hears of the dream, he comes to his senses and leads the Israelites to victory. God was not wrong in calling Gideon.

Application: Judges 6:14 gives us a clue to what it means for God to call a person. “Go in this might of yours,” says God. Gideon was working under the assumption that God calls people with stronger might than his. “God calls people who are stronger, smarter, more eloquent, born into privilege and wealth, who have better education and more natural charisma, who are better and more capable than me.” So Gideon thinks, and so do we assume. But God says, “Go in this might of yours” not “Find someone mightier than you.” God gives Gideon – and everyone – all the might we need to do what God calls us to do. The choir director at my home church hung a framed sign in the choir room. The sign said, “God doesn’t call the equipped. God equips the called.” Yes, and amen. Gideon learns that God’s calling doesn’t depend on whether or not we believe ourselves to be equipped for the job. Instead, God calls people exactly as we are, with the might we already possess, and equips us for every work we are called to do. Go in the might that is already yours.

Prayer:

For the teenager hearing the first whisper of the Voice saying, “Child, there’s work no one else can do but you,” I pray. For the mid-career professional contemplating a career change because they feel a stubborn pull on their heart urging them to say to the quiet, “There must be more to life than this,” I pray. For those in their sixth and seventh and eighth and ninth decades of life and more who stay curious to calling and remain open to change and lean into new beginnings and fresh opportunities for investing in people, I pray. For the parent wondering why parenting is so hard and the spouse worrying why marriage is so hard and students wondering why school has to be so hard and people in all lines of work everywhere, the unpaid kind and the compensated kind and the unseen kind, for patience and strength in the grind of worthy work, I pray. For all people who see the world’s problems and want to be part of the healing and would naturally look to leaders who are smarter and stronger and more capable than we are; for ferocity of spirit and a deep well of resilience and trust that you equip the called rather than call the equipped; and for open-hands ready to be put to work, I pray. Onward we go: amen.