Gideon was just a regular guy, doing regular-guy things, when the LORD appeared to him and told him that he would be the one to bring victory to his people over their oppressors, the Midianites.
Now it would be one thing to lead a mighty army of thousands, but God made the helpful move of whacking the army down to a handful.
I love the way the Lord explains it: "If I give you the victory in battle with all these men, you'll think you did it. I want you to know that I did it."
Legion by legion was eliminated until there were only 300 men left to fight the nation's biggest bullies. Gideon's expression probably looked something like this:
"But...but...wait..."
Has that ever happened to you? You've given everything over to God, ready to do his will, eager to serve...and then he starts whacking away at your strengths.
"There's still too much of you," he says. "You'll have to step aside so I can work through you."
"But...but...that's my best talent! That's my favorite gift! I'm really good at that and I was gonna do it for you!"
He shakes his head. "No. I don't want your best efforts. I want your weakness, your inadequacies, your failures. If you do it, we'll only get human-sized results. Whereas, if you want My blessing on it..."
And you have a decision to make.
You can "give it all you got," and get your best results.
OR...
You can give Him all you got and get the results God planned.
Human-sized results or God-sized results?
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