"Bol - Gideon and the Angel" by Ferdinand Bol - http://www.artbible.info/art/large/297.html. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bol_-_Gideon_and_the_Angel.JPG#mediaviewer/File:Bol_-_Gideon_and_the_Angel.JPG
I love the story of the call of Gideon from the Book of Judges (chapter 6). The Angel finds Gideon threshing wheat inside the wine press. The wine press--basically, a big bucket--is the absolute worst press to do a task like threshing wheat which requires a wide open space and good breeze. It's a stupid thing to be doing, but Gideon is there because he is afraid of Israel's enemies.
That's the part that first convicts me--being motivated by fear to do something stupid. I am no more or less cowardly or foolhardly than most people, but I consider fear to be a leading motivator in much of our human actions. Fear, in some ways, is the opposite of faith.
The angel tells Gideon that HE has been chosen by God to defeat Israel's enemies and Gideon begins a whole host of reasons why that simply cannot be--"God is not really with us", "I am too unimportant", blah, blah, blah. The Angel's response is classic. He really does not acknowledge Gideon's objections; he simply just announces that God will be with Gideon and that Gideon now carries the might of the Lord as his own. In other words, "hush up and get about the business you have been called to do."
That is another part that I find convicting. Oh, the excuses we all love to give for not doing what God calls us to do. Nonetheless, Gideon will be called to do amazing things. I am unsure if I'll ever do anything "amazing", but I do believe I--as well as you, good reader--am called to do some things for God.
We all have bible stories that seem to speak directly to us. (If you don't, you probably haven't poked around the bible enough.) This is one that speaks to me, and so I have part of it the title of my blog.
Peace in Christ,
PLH
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