Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, “The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!”
Gideon said to Him, “O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”
Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?”
So he said to Him, “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
And the LORD said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.” Judges 6:11-16
Gideon was hiding in a winepress, threshing wheat and the Angel of the Lord called him a mighty man of valour and told him the Lord was with him.
Gideon questioned this on two levels:
1) if the Lord was with him (us) why were they delivered into the hands of the Midianites?
2) What man of valour has to hide in the winepress to thresh his wheat?
God sees what is, not what things look like.
God sees the truth, about us as individuals and about our situations.
God looks at us and sees the potential He has placed within us, not what we are currently.
God looks at our situation and sees His plans for the situation, not what the situation looks like currently.
God assured Gideon of two things:
1) that he would use Gideon in a mighty way and
2) that the Midianites would be defeated.
What do you see today?
We need to learn to see what is versus what things look like, lining up our view with the view of the Lord!
