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When God calls you to do or be something, and you aren’t good enough to do it… good! Because that is the moment He works in power.

This episode is “I’m Not Good Enough, Hallelujah!” God takes weak, humble, fearful people and uses them to do wonderful things. Moses. Abraham. David. Daniel. Paul. Peter. And you, if you will trust Him to give you the wisdom, power and strength you need to do His amazing will.

The following segments are a Bible story on how to seriously trust God when your nation is about to go under, why not being good enough is a good thing; and how a successful attorney from Dallas discovered that not being good enough just means God can do great things.

Gideon

Time: about 1200 BC, 150 years since the entry into the Promised Land. At this time, the nation of Midian had conquered Israel because they were apostate – they worshipped other gods.

Israel kept right on worshipping the local Caananite gods, notably Baal and Asherah. The Baal myths were a mishmash from different regions, but Baal was essentially a nature deity who caused the rainy and dry seasons of the year. In Babylonia he was in charge of the agricultural year and the changing of the seasons. In the region that is now Syria, he was a storm god who caused the rains to fall to earth and thus the crops grew.

Israel was an agricultural people, so they went right along with Baal worship. This included weird sexual perversions including “sacred prostitution,” all in the name of bringing the life giving rain. The Lord their God didn’t grow the crops, they thought – Baal did. They also worshipped a mother-figure goddess named Asherah, who some cults believed was Yahweh’s wife and queen! Yuck. Asherah poles were a sign of her worship.

So because Israel insisted on chasing after Canaanite gods, God allowed Midian to conquer them. One the meanings of “Midian” is “strife” and they sure lived up to their name. The time of Moses marrying his Midianite wife Zipporah — and being friends with Jethro, her father the Midianite priest — was long gone, and Midian hated Israel. Hebrews fled to the mountains and mountain forts. Midian and its allies razed crops and stole or killed the livestock. Famine was rampant and many people died from constant attack and starvation.

Gideon was the youngest son of a poor family in a poor clan, from the tribe of Manasseh. He was using a winepress to thresh wheat for grain in an attempt to hide the process from the Midianites.  An angel came and greeted him: “Hello mighty warrior!” (Gideon looks around.) “Er…”

Then he has a few questions: Why has God abandoned us? Where are the wonders we heard about?

So God asks Gideon what he’s talking about. Didn’t God just call on Gideon to free his people? What other kind of wonder is he looking for? But in case he needs to see more…

Fire consumes the meat and bread that Gideon offered his visitor. So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord. He was also told to break his father’s Baal altar and the nearby Asherah pole. He did, built another altar to the Lord in its place, and used the wood from the Asherah pole to burn a sacrifice! Talk about being rude to foreign gods.

People were upset when they found the destruction the next morning, but Gideon’s father defended his son. He told them to let Baal do his own dirty work. So they relented and called Gideon “Jerub-Baal,” or basically, “Fights with Baal.” They rather expected the storm god to smite him, so they went off to have lunch.

Meanwhile, the Midianites and their various allies got ready to harry Israel yet again. They had over 100,000 warriors and camped in the Valley of Jezreel. So Gideon blew the trumpet and called the Israelites of his tribe and neighbouring tribes to war.

Then he did the fleece to be sure! Actually, 2 fleeces. Gideon placed fleeces down and asked God to:

1st test: Let the fleece be dripping wet and the ground be bone-dry.

2nd test: Let the ground be dripping wet and the fleece bone-dry.

Note that using “a fleece” to find God’s will isn’t necessarily the best plan. First of all, the situation was a dire one. If Gideon got God’s will wrong, then he and maybe thousands of Israelites would be destroyed. He seriously needed confirmation. And he got it.

So Gideon had 32,000 men – and the Lord thought that this was too many! So He told Gideon to tell the scared ones to go home. 22,000 men up and left. And guess what – still too many! So they did the lapping test. The ones who lapped like dogs were sent home. The ones who cupped the water in their hands stayed. All 300 of them. Yep – 300 men to 100,000.

It’s nighttime and Gideon and his 300 have cleverly snuck up on the Midianite camp. The campfires are sparkling as far as the eye can see. Gideon and his servant sneak down the camp where they overhear one Midianite tell another that he has a dream of a big loaf of barley tumbling down the mountainside and taking down a big Midianite tent. His friend relates and says, “Heh! That stands for Gideon’s sword! He’s going to attack us AND WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE.” Uh – O.K. And he was right! 

So Gideon rejoices at the encouragement. He goes back to his men and gives each of them a trumpet and an earthenware pot with a torch inside it. He divides them into 3 groups and tells them to watch for his signal. They sneak back and “surround” the giant camp. Then Gideon blows his trumpet and yells “For the Lord and Gideon!” He smashes his jar to reveal the torch. All of his men do the same thing. Now there is violence in the camp! Scared to death of the huge incoming Israelite army, the Midianite soldiers and their allies carve each other up! The survivors make a run for it – and Gideon is at their heels.

“When We Are Weak, Then He Is Strong”

The best victories often come when we are weakest.   

We just listened to the true story of Gideon. Now Gideon doesn’t exactly feel like the ‘valiant warrior’ that the Lord calls him. And as for him delivering Israel by himself… crazy talk! In fact Gideon feels more like a weakling than a warrior or someone valiant. ‘You know the entire Manasseh tribe?’ he says to God… ‘Well my family is bottom of the barrel. Dead last! And in the most insignificant family in Manasseh, yep, I’m the youngest and weakest! You may have bet on the wrong horse I’m afraid!’

Ever felt like that? That you really don’t have anything much to offer God and He’ll be better off without you failing? Well if you have, welcome to the Gideon factor! It just well may be, (if you can get your eyes off yourself) the very thing which propels you into being a likely candidate!

Before saving the entire nation from the clutches of the enemy (it’s starting to sound like a superhero comic!) God has one small priority for young weak Gideon… put your family’s house in order! Give that Baal the chop and establish the Lord God of Israel as Lord over this home! It will prove to be the very first step in some extremely quick lessons in obedience.

Now, again we see the weak and fearful side of our hero in that being afraid of what might happen, he secretly cuts down the Baal altar at night, under the cover of darkness!

Does God scold Gideon for his fear and lack of faith? Not at all! In an occupied country, Gideon’s action was brave even if he did do it by night.

God knows Gideon and you for that matter, better than you know yourself. He knows we are weak and fearful creatures at times and doesn’t expect perfection. The lesson and challenge for you is to not allow your fear to prevent you from being obedient. Easily said, I know. But God takes us and teaches us step by step if we will trust Him. Gideon, being weak like us, was fearful, but he still obeyed God’s command.

Does God still have His people use clay jars, torches and trumpets to solve impossible situations today? In a very real way, yes!

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. 7But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. (2 Cor. 4:6-7)

You are the fragile clay jar; Jesus is the light within that jar; and your testimony to His greatness is the trumpet call you are asked to sound!

We have seen how God delights in using weak vessels to display His strength and faithfulness. We have also seen that this can often come about in the times when Midian (strife and trouble), is around. Like Gideon, it is daunting and scary when faced with overwhelming odds. Trials are never nice when you are in them, otherwise they wouldn’t be called trials! But we can take heart that God has a purpose for them. It is for the strengthening of your faith and the displaying of His life through you! Each crack in the clay vessel brings forth a little more light! The Apostle Paul also said in 2 Cor 12:9-10:

But God said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Interview with Emem Washington

Emem is an attorney, adjunct professor — and a Christian speaker, writer, composer and musician. how does an accomplished woman like this NOT feel good enough — and how is that a good thing?

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