And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, “The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!”
— Judges 6:12 (NKJ)
During the time of Gideon, the Midianites were rampaging the land of Israel. They were bullies, a mean oppressive people. Interestingly, the story of Ruth happened around the same time period as the story of Gideon. The Israelites were living in a time of scarcity and doing everything they could to salvage any crops or goods they had to sustain themselves.
Gideon was in the winepress, possibly similar to the one in the above photo, threshing out the wheat. Wheat was generally threshed out in the open but he was hiding so that their source of food would not be confiscated by the enemy. Verse 12 says that the Angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon. Several indicators show that the Angel of The Lord is Jesus pre incarnate. 1. The Angel is referred to as Lord and 2. He received the offering showing Himself to be God.
Jesus said to Gideon, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!” What a statement! Gideon’s response is very telling. It shows the state of his heart. In verse 13, He starts off by saying, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened? If God were with us, the situation would be different! The Lord has forsaken us. Where are all the miracles of our fathers? The Lord is the one who has delivered us into the hands of Midian”. The more Gideon spoke, the more he revealed what he believed in his heart.
Gideon was basing who God was on what He thought the situation should look like and feel like! He was not basing the presence of God on who God is or His character. His deductive reasoning said that God had forsaken them and it was God that had delivered them to Midian.
Can you see yourself in this story? Life is not going as planned. So we think God has left us. “God has not rescued me and He has not intervened like I thought He would.” We have a picture in mind of the rescue, of what having God’s presence is supposed to look like. When it looks differently, we say, “God has abandoned us” or we may even say, “the Lord has allowed this to happen to me”. God was there in the midst of the Israelites, but their tainted view of Him took away their ability to see the truth. Yet He was with them.
God is with you. Life is happening and it looks different. It looks discouraging and hopeless. It seems the rescue, the miracle, is for everyone else and not you. As with Gideon, the Lord says to you, “I am with you and I will never ever leave you!”
Believe what He says. He is your Redeemer! See His character and His love for you. In Him, there is joy, hope and rest. He has not forgotten you no matter what it seems like to your five senses. He is working on your behalf just as He was working to deliver the Israelites. God loves you and He has not forsaken you. Put your hope in who God is, your deliverer, the One who loves you.
“You are defined by God’s word. Nothing can change that!”
October 2023 Wallpaper