Champion?

Judges 6:¹² “The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!”

I can imagine that Gideon was probably alarmed because what the Angel was saying was nothing close to what he could see with his own two eyes. First, you call a man that is grinding wheat on a threshing floor a mighty man when he is not even close. Then, you say God is with him when everything around suggests that God is absent. Judges 6:¹³ “Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?…” If the Lord is with us then why do we have to queue for hours to get petrol? If the Lord is with us, why are we struggling with things we should not be struggling with? If the Lord is with us, then why are the wicked thriving?

If the Lord is with us why are we still grappling with things that have been solved hundreds of years ago. Why are we still struggling with malaria? Do you know malaria was totally eradicated from the United States a hundred years ago? It is not rocket science. Do you know that people are still dying from malaria in Nigeria today? If the Lord is with us, why are we struggling? Why are these things happening to us? Where are all the miracles that Pastors tell us about, that we read about in the Bible, and that our fathers tell us about? “…And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The Lord brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.” [Judges 6:13]

What happened next was ridiculous. Judges 6:¹⁴ “Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!” [with emphasis]. Note that God did not tell Gideon to first go and get a PhD or get some military training. He was not even required to learn how to shoot a gun or learn how to fly a fighter jet. God says, this same strength that has reduced you to hiding in the threshing floor, go in that very strength. Then He, God, will bring victory. You feel defeated and deflated right now, yet God is saying you are a champion. God is not saying, you will be a champion, He is saying you are a champion.

God looks at a seed and sees a forest. Maybe nothing in your life right now resembles the stuff of champions, but still God is saying you are a champion. Why does God look at a seed and call it a forest? God sees a forest in a seed because He put it there. God sees the champion in you because He put that champion in you. God sees a strong man of God, a strong woman of God in you because He put it there.

Prayer: Father, I am who You say that I am and I will do the things You say, in Jesus Name. Amen!