Don't Forget

“So Midian was under the rule of Israel; they did not cause trouble anymore. And the land had peace for forty years, as long as Gideon was alive.” Judges 8:28

Mr. Gideon was a farmer who God picked out to defend his territory and hometown Ophrah from the Midianites. The primary portion that has crept into everyday language from this narrative is the idea of “casting fleeces” before God. You can read it in the preceding couple of chapters in the book of Judges.

God calls Mr. G. a “mighty warrior” while he is hiding from the Midianite terrorists behind a winepress. If we didn’t know the God of the Bible better we would swear He got his GPS coordinates wrong. But, God being perfect and all, He was indeed at the right house, and was talking to the right guy. Gideon was the man to restore a bit of peace back to the neighborhood.

Finally Gideon agrees with God, after quite a few questions and a couple of pre-battle test signs just to be sure about it all. After God reassures him with the “dry fleece/wet ground and wet fleece/dry ground” pair of miracles, Gideon gathers up his militia.

With 32,000 recruits, along with God’s “no failure” clause in hand, Gideon goes out with assurance. But God doesn’t like the numbers. No, He doesn’t tell Gideon to hire a few more recruits; God wants to whittle down their number. There are just too many people; Israel would brag that they had defeated Midian themselves if that many troops won the victory.

If I was Midian, I could handle a few hundred less of the newest men; their skills being minimal, they would hardly be missed. But God’s idea was far greater. Anything over 300 men would be too many in His point of view! All in all, God used 300 untrained soldiers to defeat several hundred thousand of the enemy.

Gideon came home a hero and the Midianites were defeated so badly that they were no longer strong enough to attack Israel. For the remaining 40 years of Gideon’s life, Israel enjoyed peace and quiet. Forty years is a long time without the fear of war, and one would hope the next generation would trust the God who had delivered them so wonderfully.

But it was not to be. In fact, immediately upon arriving home, Gideon collected everyone’s jewely and the neighborhood stoked up and fiery hot bonfire to celebrate. Mr. G., carried away by the music, the celebration, or the goading of a handful who wanted a visible “reminder” of their victory, threw the gold into the fire and built a statue out of it all. Israel didn’t take long before they worshiped the gilded image.

The stories in Scripture are not there so we can have one more reason to pat ourselves on the back because we would “never do something like that.” I have watched myself, other followers of Jesus, and read the Bible stories enough times to realize, we are all prone to the same disease. We are downright forgetful when it comes to remembering that God actually brought us out of the impossible situation only so many years ago.

We are not happy with our memories. We cannot rejoice unless we get an emotional button pushed soon before the effects of the previous one fade away. We know idols have no power, but ours aren’t “idols” after all. We don’t “worship” anything but God, we simply want enough in the bank to be sure we don’t need Him again next time.

We stop being generous, we don’t help at the food bank quite as often, and we may forget to support the missionaries who ask for our help. They are supposed to depend on God, after all, aren’t they?

So, even though God needed next to nothing to deliver us the last time, we still want to hedge our bets. What if this time He actually needs 500,000 people to deliver? What if He needs a Mercedes instead of a Volkswagen? It’s God’s good fortune that I was astute enough to splurge, or He might not have access to one this go around.

Israel had peace for 40 years, but also allowed the candle of their devotion to burn down cold. It was so slow no one really noticed until the next enemy was knocking at the door, and God delayed just long enough, hoping we would get the point.

How has God helped you recently? If only we would see the great victory Jesus accomplished over the terror that sin held over us, the fear that death dangles in front of us and the trials that Satan tries to bury us with. It was out of His love that He saved us, and did it in such a way that we could never take a bit of the credit. Today might be a good time to thank Him, not just for 40 years of peace, but for an eternity of an abundant life through faith in Christ.