Judges 6: 12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”

God does not see your circumstances the way you see them and he certainly does not see you as you see yourself. There are so many wonderful aspects to this record of Gideon’s encounter with the Lord that would need a great deal more space to explore than this blog will allow so we are going to focus on Gideon himself.

Gideon is the son of Joash who belonged to the Abiezrite clan of the tribe of Manasseh. This is one of the twelve tribes of Israel, God’s chosen people. You would think this alone would make him a proud and confident man. Instead we hear him in Judges 6:15 explaining to the angel of the Lord that he cannot save Israel from the Midianites who were oppressing them because he    considered himself to be the least in his family which was the weakest clan in the tribe of Manasseh.

Compare his perception of himself with the greeting of the angel of the Lord: “The Lord is with you mighty warrior!” He must have looked around to see if someone else was present, and wondered “Are you speaking to me?” Yes, actually. God had destined him to be an instrument in his hand with a divine assignment.  And that is true of every child of God. There are specific things that God wants you to do. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10). Spend quiet time in the Word and be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. You might not be called to go to war, but you are called to demonstrate God’s love to the people you meet every day and to be much more than you ever dreamed simply because God is with you.