Go in the strength you have.

Hey everyone hope you’re well. It’s been a minute. Anyway, I have some time so I thought ‘why not?’ Hopefully this helps.

There’s this really fascinating period of history in the Bible. It’s known as “The time when the Judges ruled.” It’s the early years of Israel as a nation and what becomes apparent is that Israel cannot live up to God’s calling. In this time the people have no king and they do as they please. The cycle is as follows; Israel refuse to walk in the way that God has set for them, they experience the consequence of their sin, they beg God to save them, God raises up a judge to save them, Israel rejoices and then goes back to its old ways and the cycle begins anew. The book tells us the story of twelve Judges; today we will look at one.

In Judges 6 we meet a man named Gideon. When we meet him Israel are suffering the consequences of their evil and they are in a bad place. They are oppressed by Midian and when they cry out to God he sends them a prophet and his word’s aren’t encouraging at all. One day Gideon is threshing wheat in a winepress. The Bible puts that detail there because it’s important. I’ll try and describe it for you but when you have time look up a picture of an ancient Israelite winepress. It was essentially a pit. You throw the grapes in somebody on the inside steps on them with their feet and the wine flows out on the other side. It’s hard enough to make wine in that. Gideon is in that pit threshing wheat! He’s is in the lowest of low places. In this state, whilst he’s thrashing around in a pit, the Angel of the Lord comes to him and says “The Lord is with you mighty warrior.” Are you kidding? Gideon is rightfully taken aback. So he asks the question that we have all asked. “Pardon me my Lord? But if you are with us then why has all this happened to us?” Sound familiar? That’s usually how we reason. “Don’t you love me God? I thought you cared? Why would you do this to me? How could you do this to me? Where are you?” And yet God is always right there. While we thrash desperately in the pit God sits next to us under the oak tree.

It is the dynamic that is the hardest for me to understand. Today is my latest stab at it. Let’s go back in the story a bit. Israel is in the place it is in because of the evil it has chosen to commit. In other words Israel’s choices have led it to this place. That’s usually how it goes for us too. We make choices and our choices lead us to the places we end up in. That is essentially what it is to be human. So when God lets us make choices and then lets us experience the consequences of our choices. What is God doing? Simple, God is allowing us to be human. That’s dignity. If dignity is that which makes us human, then when God lets us experience our choices God is dignifying us. We hate that. We want to make whatever choice we want and also not experience the consequences but to ask for that is to ask God to not allow us our humanity. And unfortunately we were made fully human. One of the most dehumanising places you can find yourself in is the place where you can no longer make choices or the place where your choices no longer matter. God has always wanted more for you than that. So when Gideon laments that God has abandoned them. He has it wrong. Israel has chosen to abandon God. However the compassion of God is so great that when they cry out for him he responds.

After Gideon laments God turns to him and says “Go in strength you have” okay seriously come on. God means every word. So the question for us is; what strength?! This is so interesting. The word for strength in Hebrew is “Me’od” it means “muchness.” To have strength is to have much. The word I like to use is capacity. We already know that Gideon has nothing. So again, what strength? Well God did just say that “The Lord is with you.” So Gideon has nothing internally that he can draw from and he has no typical material strength. But he has the Lord. The Lord is his muchness. The Lord is his strength. God is asking Gideon to redefine what strength is to him. God usually asks the same of us. If the Lord is with you, then you have strength. So when you are required to look for strength don’t look to yourself, look to God. Where do you look to find strength today? A difficult question I know, but it is one life requires us to ask. I hope you know that The Lord wants you to be strong. I also hope you’re open to the fact that strength won’t always be what you think it is.

If you need strength today, know that The Lord is with you, so your strength is with you. The Lord is always with you, so your strength is always with you. I hope this can comfort you as you tackle the journey of life and of faith.