We’re currently in the book of Judges in the Daily Audio Bible and yesterday we began the stories around Gideon. This morning as I listened I made a new connection…
I know enough about my personality, my tendencies, foibles and areas of pride to know that if I had been one of the men who showed up at Gideon’s first call to battle against the Midianites, when Gideon told anyone who wasn’t really feeling up for the battle to go home, I would have stayed. And I probably would have been proud of it, too, though I would’ve passed it off entirely as a sense of duty, responsibility and faith in God.
(And not to say those latter things are—or, rather, would have been—untrue. Merely saying that I likely wouldn’t have noticed the pride that slipped in among them.)
Then when Gideon called the remaining 10,000 of us down to the water, had I been one of the men sent home because I knelt down rather than lapping water, I would have been miffed.
I can see it so clearly.
I would have been miffed.
What’s wrong with me? I would have thought. I can fight. I want to fight. I’m even pretty good in a fight! What’s wrong with me that I was sent home? What’s wrong with kneeling to drink? That’s stupid. I know I can fight better than half those other guys. Is there something wrong with me? Why would the way we drink matter in a battle? Why am I not good enough to join in this fight? Why am I not special?
Oh. Wow.
Do you see it?
All of that wounded pride and over-thinking and what is at the center? Me.
Thinking the whole thing was somehow about me. Who I am. How I am.
And it wouldn’t have been about me at all.
It wasn’t about the guys who came to fight.
The ones willing to stay.
Their commitment.
Their heart.
Their skill.
The way they chose to drink water from a stream…
None of it was about them at all.
God simply wanted to whittle down the number of fighting men to demonstrate and remind His people who He was. That He was the one who fought for and enabled them. That He was the one who provides strength and victory.
That it wasn’t about them.
And methods of drinking water from a stream was just a way—just one way—to drastically whittle down the numbers.
It didn’t make the 300 special.
It didn’t make the 9,700 not special.
It wasn’t about them.
It was never about them.
And so it makes me wonder in how many other areas and circumstances my pride and over-thinking cause me upset and disquiet thinking something is about me when it’s not about me at all?
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