Welcome to The Turnaround’s 52 Days of Prayer!
Introduction
Thank you for taking part in the 52 Days of Prayer! Today’s scripture comes from Judges.
Insight
I love the story of Gideon because I can relate. I felt a lot like Gideon, who didn’t feel worthy of God’s calling on his life, and just like Gideon, God chose someone small to do great things for Him. I came out of a decade of addiction. At my lowest, most desperate point, I had a fifty-pill-a-day habit, but God rescued me, turned my mess into a message, and gave me a purpose to reach others like me.
I was the least. I was the lost. I was the lowest. I was an addict with a little bit of sobriety, hardly any resources, and a lot of burned bridges. I had a mountain in front of me: the challenge of lifelong sobriety.
Similar to Gideon, all I did was say, “Yes” to God, founding my first recovery home and inviting some other men in recovery to come live with me. If you know the story of Gideon, you know the deliverance God sent through him didn’t look like overwhelming might—it looked, well, kind of foolish. God said, “Go in this might of yours,” but that might of Gideon’s looked small! It looked like reducing the size of his own army. It looked like turning their focus to God and letting their oppressors defeat themselves.
If we can learn anything from the story of Gideon, we can learn that God’s deliverance usually comes in unexpected ways. The Israelites were looking to military power to save them, but God chose the poorest and the least. The Israelites were looking to the powerful, the influencers, those with name recognition, but God chose someone like Gideon, acting in small ways, to bring about everlasting change for the people of Israel.
God wants our everything—the big stuff and the little stuff. And we need to ask ourselves… Are we willing to do the small things, the quiet things, the daily things? Are we willing to pray without ceasing? To reach out to the least, the lost, and the lowest and invite them into God’s story? To take, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as we would have it? And to trust God with the little that we bring?
Prayer
Jesus, thank you for calling the poorest and the least like us. Thank you for bringing about your deliverance through a “nobody” like Gideon. Give us the courage to follow you in unexpected ways and to trust that you will provide everything we need. Give us this day our daily bread. We trust in you with our whole hearts. In Jesus’ name. Amen
