Three life lessons we can learn from Gideon:
1. On your absolute worse day, when you have received a bad report, when you feel as if all hope is gone, when you have nothing else to give, God looks at you and declares: “ I am with you, oh valiant warrior.” But we have to choose if we will believe that statement.
2. God can handle our temper tantrums. Gideon downright accused God. “Why is this happening? Where are the miracles we heard about? You have abandoned us.” Even with his bad attitude, God did not disengage with Gideon or punish him. After Gideon had his temper tantrum, God looked at him and said, “Go in your strength and do what I called you to do. I am with you.” After you have finished your temper tantrum, God looks at you and says the same thing.
Side note: God did not feel the need to defend Himself to Gideon. Why do we feel the need to defend God? We are His children not his lawyers. If we spent more time walking in the blessings and the authorities granted to us as children, we will spread the good news faster than if we spend our time in the court of public opinion defending Our Father.
3. With God, less is more. Gideon started with 32,000 men and ended up with 300. We would be rebuking the devil and looking for sin, if anything in our life decreased that quickly and that significantly. But sometimes it is God who prunes, God who removes the dross so that He can shine brighter through us. Some people, some mindsets can’t go with you in the new season. We need the wisdom to see what and who God is removing and the trust to let it go.
In the end Gideon and his 300 men defeated a vast army. Not by their strength or their might but by God’s. Whatever you are facing in this season. Know you are a mighty warrior and God is with you. God can handle your slip ups. Go in strength and conquer your vast army.
“The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O valiant warrior.”
The LORD looked at him and said, “Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?””
JUDGES 6:12, 14 NASB