I will be with you.

The book of Judges. I am amazed at how little scripture I actually know. There's so much stuff in the Old Testament I have never read. I guess that's because early in my walk I prioritized the New Testament.

Regardless.

Reading about Gideon is a relief, I think because his struggles in his encounters with God resemble mine.

"But Lord , " Gideon asked, "how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family."


Not that I'm lacking self confidence (quite the opposite, I'm actually pretty egotistical, all things considered), I just don't always live as if I believe the Lord's promises. "Ask and you shall receive" isn't easy for me to believe.

So anyways, what is the Lord's answer to Gideon's unbelief? "I will be with you." That's such an incredible promise. Just today I realized how amazing that is, that He is always here. Always. When I'm eating, running, sleeping, blogging... He's here. What a strength and comfort that is! If God is with me... in the words of Psalm 27: "whom shall I fear?"

Right, well I got a little off topic but this has been similarity number 1.

Number two:

^"36 Gideon said to God, "If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised- ³⁷ look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said." ³⁸ And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water. ³⁹ Then Gideon said to God, "Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece. This time make the fleece dry and the ground covered with dew." ⁴⁰ That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew."

Twice Gideon tests God in this way AFTER Gideon has already destroyed a temple of Baal at God's command; in other words he's already done righteous acts in God's name. In fact Gideon has already fully realized that he is conversing with the angel of the Lord (²² When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he exclaimed, "Ah, Sovereign LORD! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!").

It'd be easy to look at Gideon and think "What an IDIOT!! He's literally speaking to God face to face- and yet he's still unbelieving." But the thing is, I do the same thing- I don't doubt that He exists, that His word is true, that when I pray He hears me, and that when I listen for it I can hear Him... but then I'll still hesitate to follow through with what God is asking of me. I'll doubt myself, whether I'm just hearing what I want to hear or if I really am hearing from God... just like Gideon.

I would like to find a 3rd similarity, just because that's the way I was taught to write, and 3 is a biblical number, but I guess I haven't read far enough in Judges to find number 3 just yet! But I'm sure I will have more to come in the future on where my faith takes me... and you can read about it! That's why I made this blog in the first place.

Alright then, I guess that's about all for now... I wanted to leave you with some lyrics from a worship song, God of 3 Strings. I think it's pretty well known but I have no idea. Anyways, here you go:

"I will be with you all day long
walking through rooms inside your home,
and when the hours have quickly flown
I will be with you to stay on.

I will be with you all day long,
I'll be the summer, wind and song.
And when the sound of evening comes,
I would've been with you all day long."

You guys... He's here.

From legalism to lawnmowers... only you, Jesus. Only you.

So often I find that I'm trying to do it myself. Trying to say and do the right things to "convince" someone to believe, trying to feel "enough" guilt for my sins, trying to write the perfectly clever blog entry, trying to figure out what to do with my life both on a large scale and on a small, minute by minute scale... everything. Forever I have been trying to take care of business, to get things done, to be the impressive, brilliant and wonderful stud that everybody thinks I am.

That above paragraph is basically the incarnation of legalism... Guilty. Red hands. Turning myself in now.

^"8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:8-10

Here's an example which I have thought up all on my own:

(^^^do you see the irony in that statement?^^^ I didn't even notice it until proofreading this... that's solid evidence that what is written here is truth)

Let's say a man makes a lawnmower. This lawnmower is his workmanship. Why did he make it? For a purpose - to cut grass. Now, if the lawnmower gets broken, what does the man do? Well, he's the one who created it- the only one who knows exactly how it functions- and he loves this lawnmower very much. So he's the one who's gonna fix it. And he takes whatever time it takes, endures whatever pains he has to in order to fix that lawnmower. He pours his heart and soul into making it even better than it was before.

So once this lawnmower works again... does anyone say to it "Wow you're really tearing it up out there. You rock, dude"? No. This lawnmower has done nothing to deserve praise, all it does is cut grass. All credit is given to the maker.


Now, back to reality: I am just a lawnmower. All I can do is let Him push me around. I'll cut whatever grass He puts in front of me... but that's all I can cut.

For we are God's workmanship.