It’s late, but I just have to post this because I can’t really contain it. I really have started to cherish the quiet times I’ve had lately. It’s not because I’m depressed, or sad, or anything of those things. It’s actually quite the opposite! Even if that were the case it still doesn’t keep me from thinking how awesome our God is! It’s like my day doesn’t even really begin until it happens, I feel so energized and refreshed after doing so. Tonight even, I just took a walk out in the woods, in the dark and it was just amazing. The moonlight, the fireflies, the nice little crunching of leaves, all evidence of our Lord and Creator. I can’t even really put it into words…
I’ve been doing a lot of studying lately on different people in the Bible and the relationship between them and God. Mostly David, but he’s not actually the person I want to talk about. I actually want to focus on Gideon. I know we’ve all read and seen these stories before in Sunday school, but it seems like there’s something new to learn every time you look at them. Here are the Israelites, again being oppressed by some foreign nation (the Midianites). In comes Gideon, where God tells him he will use Gideon to free the Israelites from their oppression.
Now here’s the fun part of the story. After Gideon asks for some signs from God, Gideon gathered some people to go up against the Midianites. And of course, God intervenes and tells Gideon there are too many. I think at this point, I would’ve certainly have been questioning God at this point. “Too many people? You can never have too many people!” But of course, Gideon obeyed. 22,000 people left. 10,000 people remained. That’s a lot of people! Yet even after that, God still said there were too many and reduces it to 300. That just amazes me, an army of 300 against a whole nation? And of course, we know the rest of the story…
Just reading all of that made me really ponder, do I have the same amount of obedience that I would do something that would just seem… so insane? Gideon had some amount of courage to go into that battle… and faith too. While I might not be called to go into battle like Gideon, I do hope that I can demonstrate the same amount of courage and faith that Gideon did in all that I do, even when the world says that its wrong. I strive for that same boldness and courage… I hope in some way that this has inspired you in the way that it has inspired me…
It does kind of feel like an emotional roller coaster though… but even knowing that, I’m okay! Things have been really crazy (and busy) this semester. Projects, projects, projects… and a little bit of eating and sleeping between projects. But the other thing that amazes me is that Christ has experienced all that I have experienced… for my sake. Pain, sadness, happiness, joyfulness, tears, anger… many of these traits and Christ has experienced every one of them. I really do ponder why we don’t sometimes see, “…and Jesus laughed.” in the bible. We know that he wept (John 11:35) and got angry too (John 2:13-17) and faced temptations (Luke 4:1-13). I’m sure these other things happened. Yet he knows the pain we experience, and the sadness that happens in our lives. And rejoices with us when we are joyful, and grateful. And somehow, that just makes it all worthwhile.
Sorry for the long post, but if you made it through all of that congratulations! You deserve a cookie.
