When Gideon saw that he was the angel of
the LORD, he said, "Alas, O Lord GOD! For now I have seen the angel of the
LORD face to face." The LORD said to him, "Peace to you, do not fear;
you shall not die." Judges 6:22-23
Our look at Gideon from Judges 6-7 provides insights into
how God can take common men and do uncommon things. He turns the natural into the supernatural
and the mundane into the divine.
Thomas Wheeler, Chief Executive Officer of the Massachusetts
Mutual Life Insurance Company tells a good story on himself. He says that while
he and his wife were out driving he noticed they were low on gas. So he pulled
off at the first exit and came to this dumpy little gas station with one pump.
There was only one man working the place, so he asked the man to fill it up
while he checked the oil. He added a quart of oil, closed the hood, and he saw
his wife talking and smiling at the gas station attendant. When they saw him
looking at them, the station attendant walked away and pretended as if nothing
had happened. Wheeler paid the man and he and his wife pulled out of that seedy
little station. As they drove down the road, he asked his wife if she knew the
attendant. Well, she admitted she did know him. In fact, she had known him very
well. For it seems that they not only had gone to high school together, but
they dated seriously for about a year. Well, Wheeler couldn‘t help bragging a
little and said, "Boy were you lucky I came along. Because if you‘d
married him you‘d be the wife of a gas station attendant instead of the wife of
a Chief Executive Officer." His wife replied, "My dear, if I had
married him, he‘d be the Chief Executive Officer and you‘d be the gas station
attendant."
We are not just who we are but who God makes us to be. Consider how you might feel if, in the daily
routine of your work, an angel appeared and confronted you as he did
Gideon. Your first response would
probably be, “You have the wrong person!”
When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he exclaimed, "Alas, O
Lord GOD! For now I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face." Judges
6:22 Gideon was convinced
that it was the LORD giving the command. He was also convinced he would die because he
had looked upon the face of the angel of the LORD.
The Lord is awesome, mighty, wonderfully great, and above of
all of those word descriptions, He is Holy. Fear is the natural response of anyone when
meeting with holiness. Why, because we
are not holy, we are sin-filled disobedient human beings and deep down we know
it. There is a great awe that comes with
holiness and recognition that we are “other
than” this holy one. That is what
the word “holy” means.
The LORD said to him, "Peace to you,
do not fear; you shall not die." Judges 6:23
Thankfully, the Lord responds with a phrase that is very
common in scripture when someone comes into contact with the Lord God or His
messengers. This assurance of the Lord’s
peace, grace, and mercy are met with worship as Gideon builds an altar to God
in the middle of a pagan land. Now the
Lord gives Gideon his first task to accomplish. It is the beginning of a long list of
accomplishments which God will do through this man named Gideon.
While we honor the many men and women who God has used
through the years it is important to remember that they are no more than mortal
men infused with the purpose and power of God.
That leaves the door wide open for us to be used for His purposes. Are you God’s next Gideon?
Scripture to Claim:
But God has chosen
the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak
things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things
of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that
He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God. 1
Corinthians 1:27-29
