Your Ultimate Resource - Gideon

The LORD said to Gideon, “You have too many warriors with you. If I let all of you fight the Midianites, the Israelites will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength.”

Judges 7:2

Tim owned a small framing business that employed six full-time laborers. One year, as things became very busy for Tim and his business, he ran into a huge problem. Two of his men left to take other jobs, and another was hurt and couldn’t work. With three jobs needing attention in the next few weeks, Tim was in deep weeds!

Have you ever felt that you have important work to do, but lack the talent, manpower, or resources to get it done?

Gideon once faced that situation, but in the end, his faith in God’s provision saved the day.

God called Gideon to lead his army of about thirty-two thousand men out to meet their Midianite enemies. There was one caveat: The vast majority of those men wouldn’t be going. God wanted to keep Gideon and the rest of the Israelites humble, and he wanted them to know their Source of victory.

He directed Gideon to send most of his men home.

The first cut wasn’t difficult. Gideon told the men who were afraid to fight to go home, which cut his manpower by twenty-two thousand. He then reduced his forces to only three hundred men, based on how they drank water from a nearby stream.

Gideon knew that God was with him and had called him to lead, but he had to wonder if he was being set up for failure. The Bible doesn’t tell us specifically how many men were in the enemy camp, but it does tell us that they “had settled in the valley like a swarm of locusts. Their camels were like grains of sand on the seashore—too many to count!” (Judges 7:12).

God humbled Gideon’s forces before they headed out to battle, and then he sent them out to claim an overwhelming victory.

God wants to do great things in your life, and he wants you to know that he is your Source for every victory you claim. When you feel that you don’t have what it takes to complete the tasks he has put before you, he may be about to perform a miracle on your behalf.