Victory Through Surrender
“But Lord,” Gideon asked, “how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family” (Judges 6:15) Remember Gideon? He’s the fellow who introduced us to “fleece prayers,” and routed a massive army with only 300 men armed with empty jars, torches, and trumpets. Through a series of tests, God reduced the army of 30,000 men which Gideon had raised, to only 300. (Judges 6-8) . From his experiences, we learn that there is victory in surrender to God’s call. We first find Gideon hiding out in a wine press threshing his wheat, for fear of the enemies of Israel. He had good reason to be afraid. For seven years the armies of the Midianites, Amalekites, and other eastern countries had encamped on Israeli land, tramping their crops and slaughtering their livestock in an effort to annihilate them by destroying their food supply. Things had become so desperate that Gideon’s fellow countrymen had fled to...