O Valiant Warrior

Okay so you know the story in Judges chapters 6-8 about Gideon? Well lately we have been going through these passages in Quiet Time. It is so easy to approach a passage that you know (or think you know) so well with a careless attitude. As if you cannot possibly learn anything new from it, because you have heard about it since you were born basically. Well I didn't want that to be me. So as I approached these passages of Scripture, I asked God to teach me from them, not just by the reading of them, but through my own personal life. God showed up in a big way! Why am I surprised? He always does!

Snow camp began this past weekend and I was assigned to clean the floors. That's all my job was; me and about 9 other guys - cleaning floors the entire weekend. Obviously I did not have the right attitude about it. I realized this and prayed that God would help me because I knew my heart was not in the right place concerning this. I really love to interact with campers and minister to them one-on-one. Cleaning floors needless to say does not present many opportunities to do this; especially since they are only here for like 2 days.

So as I went through Quiet Time I saw God call Gideon a "valiant warrior" (Judges 6:11). If you never noticed before; Gideon was a coward. He was so afraid of the Midianites that he was trying to thresh the wheat in the wine press, which by the way would be extremely close to impossible to do. He asked for two signs from God and made many excuses, but God persisted. I thought about that. As insignificant as Gideon thought he was, God knew that with Him, Gideon could go from coward to victor. Then, God takes Gideon and 300 men to defeat 120,000 Midianites. Wow! And we so often say "yeah, yeah, heard it before. Give me something new." Really?! Imagine your country at war and your president says "God only wants 300 men to go overseas to fight. We are sending our 300 to take on their 120,000. God will give us the victory!" Im pretty sure he would not last too long as president. He might just end up in a straight jacket.

So I thought about my life. Cleaning floors is a very small and insignificant task. Or so I thought! God WILL use that to do great things for His glory! I am confident of that. Best of all; whether or not I ever see the results of my labour, I GET to work for God! Amazing! I am not worthy. I asked God for forgiveness and cleaning floors took on a whole new light for me. Now I can't wait for next weekend to get dirty serving my King!