According To Judges 6, an angel of God told Gideon of Manasseh: Go and save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Understandably, Gideon was timid and very cautious about the idea — as I am sure I would have been. After all, those Midianites destroyed the increase of the earth and left no sustenance; they came as grasshoppers for multitude: for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it.
Coping with the Midianite occupation must have been difficult enough for Gideon and his countrymen, and now this! His initial response to God’s commission was not surprising: Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then has all this befallen us? But God fully understood and sympathized with his nervousness. That’s what’s so encouraging about this story. Adapting Hymn
121 in Praise the Lord,
Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged: take it to the Lord in prayer!
Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share?
The Lord knows our every weakness — take it to the Lord in prayer!
Gideon sent out an appeal for help in this daunting task of delivering God’s people. And he heard that help was on its way. Then the misgivings, the “ifs,” all came rushing back. God had called him “mighty man of valour,” but he didn’t feel anything like that. He had knots in the pit of his stomach. So he did a kind of deal with his God: he would put out a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If the ground was dry and the fleece was wet, then he would know that everything would work out. Next morning, there it was. Gideon looked at the bowl of water and wondered. Someone could have played a trick on me. It’s easy to pour a bowl of water on a fleece. So he went back to God. Don’t be angry, Lord. Let me pray again. Let me prove You, please. Let it be dry on the fleece, and wet upon all the ground. If the ground is wet and the wool dry, you can’t fake that. That’s got to be God. And so, next morning, there it was. Right, I am going. I know He will be with me in the dark.
Every day we need to be like Gideon, looking for evidence of God’s hand.
If we don’t, we will surely lose our way and be very lonely too. I have asked for a wet or dry fleece many times. I have been through Gideon’s experiences, and I know how hard it can be when the Lord has pointed the way for us and we feel inadequate and fear to accept it.
When I think about that fleece, I realize that it is not shameful for even a mighty man of valour like Gideon to need divine assurance. These days I tremble when I read in our magazines of some sister who has “borne affliction with exemplary fortitude and patience.” I wish I was in that category, but I am not. But then neither was Gideon, and I am glad because he will be in the Kingdom. Neither was Elijah and Jacob and David, and they will all be there, for they all died in faith.
So when I am faint hearted, I pray for my wet or dry fleece, and I know that God will understand, and that helps me so much.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One