If you have ever sat through a courtroom trial or even watched one on a television drama, you are familiar with how defense attorneys react when they don't like something the prosecutor is doing. “Objection, Your Honor!” they interrupt. “Counsel is leading the witness….”
The judge listens to the complaint and decides whether or not it is valid. If the judge agrees, the line of questioning is stopped. But if the judge disagrees, the reply will come down from the bench, “Objection overruled.” It is the magistrate's way of saying that the protest was unwarranted, and the trial should proceed.
Sometimes in my Christian walk, when I sense God is trying to do something new in my life, I find myself responding like a trial attorney. Maybe you do, too. We say to God, “I object.” We don't do this just to be difficult or defiant. We think we have a valid reason not to step out in faith and obedience to what God seems to be saying. Our reservations are very logical, at least in our minds. But because God loves us and wants the best to come to pass in our lives, he responds with the simple phrase “Objection overruled.”
That was certainly the case with Gideon. He was an obscure farmer whom God tapped for leadership when the nation of Israel, once again, fell away from serving the Lord and ended up in horrible bondage to the Midianites. Every year when the Israelite crops were ready for harvest, the Midianites swept down and stole them. Then one day the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon as he was “threshing wheat in a winepress” (Judg. 6:11) for fear that the Midianite raiders would find him.
It's hard to imagine today what a desperate act this was. Threshing in those times meant beating the harvested wheat stalks with a rod or flail to knock the kernels loose from the surrounding husks, then tossing everything into the air with a pitchfork. The wind blew the lightweight husks and stalks away, while the heavier grain fell back to the ground for collecting.
And Gideon was trying to do this job down in a winepress
—a small pit in the ground where grapes were trampled to extract the juice. Talk about cramped quarters! A modern equivalent might be trying to sand and refinish a large piece of furniture in a bathroom. Your elbows would be bumping into walls and cabinets every five seconds. You would be totally frustrated. You would be shouting, “I need more space!”
So it was for Gideon when the angel showed up with his strangely optimistic greeting, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior” (v. 12).
Who, me? Gideon no doubt thought. Do I look much like a mighty warrior? He promptly voiced his irritation and the first of four objections to the messenger from God.
Objection 1:
“Where Have You Been?”
You can almost hear the sarcasm in his tone when Gideon says, “Pardon me, my lord, … but if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian” (v. 13).
I encounter people on a regular basis who, like Gideon, are just a little upset with God. He hasn't come through for them, they say. He seems to help other people in other places, but not them. Others get their prayers answered, but for some reason theirs go ignored. They try to tell me that God isn't paying attention, or he is showing up too late to do any good.
The problem for these people is often a case of shortsightedness and limited perspective. People are too quick to blame God for being unavailable. They are like Gideon saying, “The Lord has abandoned us,” when in fact it is the other way around. The people of Israel had abandoned God to worship the Canaanite idols. Now they reaped God's chastening for their spiritual infidelity.
It is curious to me that in this moment, the angel of the Lord did not try to defend God. He didn't even dignify Gideon's taunt with a response. The next words out of his mouth instead are, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?” (vs. 14).
Some questions and complaints don't need an answer. Any good parent knows that, and certainly our heavenly Father does. God's response to Gideon's first objection is get back to the main subject of what he wants Gideon to do now. Never mind rehashing the past. There is a job to be done, and Gideon is the divine choice to tackle it.
Objection 2:
“I Don't Have the Right Connections”
Gideon begins to recite how unqualified he is. “Pardon me, my lord, … but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family” (v. 15). He is sure that God needs someone with better qualifications and connections than him. His résumé doesn't look that impressive. His list of references seems woefully short. The Israelite joint chiefs of staff are not exactly searching for a guy like Gideon to lead the charge against the enemy.
What Gideon focuses on is not God's omnipotent power but the insignificance of his life and family. I can empathize with this very deeply. When I first sensed God's call to the ministry, I struggled for many months. I could not envision myself preaching. I had never taken a homiletics course, nor was I a public speaker. I objected as Gideon did, saying to God, “You must have the wrong person.”
God's response to me was the same as his response to Gideon that day long ago: “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together” (v. 16). He was saying in essence, “You may not have the right connections—but you have me! I'm your source. I'm the one you need to call. I'll be with you every step of the way.” The key to victory is not who we know on a first-name basis, how many phone numbers or email addresses we've collected, what associations we're members of, or which credentials hang on our wall. We belong to God, and we can be confident that he knows perfectly what the future holds. He is not depending on our credentials but rather calling us to rely on him.
George Whitefield (pronounced “Whit-field”) was born into a poor family in Gloucester, England, in 1714, the last of seven children. His father died when he was only two years old. The boy contracted measles at age ten, which left him noticeably cross-eyed. He dropped out of school for a while to help his mother run the family inn. The only way he got into the expensive and prestigious Oxford University was as a “servitor,” meaning he earned tuition money by polishing shoes and carrying the books of wealthier students. It was there, however, that he met the Wesley brothers, John and Charles, and joined their “Holy Club.”
Whitefield went on to become the most powerful preacher of the eighteenth century. He made seven different tours of the American colonies and was a major catalyst of the awesome spiritual revival called the First Great Awakening. His name, say some historians, was the most famous up and down the colonies until another George (Washington) came to prominence. Detractors criticized him and made fun of his crossed eyes, calling him “Dr. Squintum.” But Whitefield didn't care; he just kept preaching—some 18,000 sermons in his lifetime, many of which were delivered in the open air. When he preached in Philadelphia, the esteemed Benjamin Franklin surveyed the crowd and calculated it to be around 20,000 people, all within reach of his powerful, unamplified voice.
In fact, Whitefield stayed on American soil until his death in 1770. He is buried under the pulpit of Old South Church (Presbyterian) in Newburyport, Massachusetts, just up the coast from Boston. Neither humble roots nor physical limitations kept him from accomplishing what God called him to do. His continual reliance on the Lord is shown in this statement: “God is not only a help, but a present help; the gates of the New Jerusalem stand open day and night.”1
Many of us today are in danger of missing out on a great future with God because of our concern over qualifications. We instinctively say, “I can't,” whenever God wants to thrust us out into a new sphere of ministry and blessing to others. We worry about not being able to answer every question that arises. Or God directs us to a larger involvement in our own church, and we say, “What if I do it poorly, and fail? I would be so embarrassed.”
Some people will do anything to avoid taking a risk. They will say they are too young, or too old. They will claim they haven't received proper training, or they have a physical limitation. If they are women, they may say God should be calling a man for this job instead. But God knows what he is doing, and when we take the risk to follow him, he will meet all our needs. If we need financial resources, he will supply them. If we need strength and endurance, he will fortify us. If we need wisdom, he has promised to give it to us. We simply have to take God at his word, trusting and obeying, regardless of the what-ifs and regardless of our fears.
It has been wisely said that no place in this world is safer than being at the center of God's will. Conversely, nothing is worse in life than huddling in a “safe” place that God never ordained for us.
Gideon did not step forward immediately to challenge the Midianites, but he did take the first tentative step by going to get a sacrifice—goat meat and unleavened bread—to present as an offering. The angel touched it with the tip of his staff, setting it ablaze. That night the Lord gave Gideon a small assignment to get started. He wasn't asked to knock down all the idolatrous altars in the country—just the one in his father's courtyard. Gideon was afraid of being seen, so he did the job in the dead of night.
Soon he was ready to start assembling an army. However, he still wasn't confident about where God was taking him.
Objection 3:
“Would You Give Me a Sign?”
Gideon decided to put God to a clear-cut test. I don't recommend this practice for anyone. We ought to be able to take God at his word alone, without asking him to prove anything. Yet Gideon laid out a wool fleece and asked that by the next morning it be wet with dew while all the surrounding ground would be dry. How odd that the mere mortal was checking up on whether the all-powerful God was up to a challenge!
Believe it or not, God was gracious enough to accommodate Gideon's request. He didn't need to, of course, but he went along with Gideon's little game. “Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water” (Judg. 6:38). If there was any lingering doubt that God was alert and paying attention to Gideon, this should have laid it to rest.
Objection 4:
“How About Another Sign?”
Can you believe that Gideon had the nerve to run his little test again? This time he asked for the reverse: a dry fleece and wet ground. I am surprised God did not lose patience with him, saying, “Gideon, you're stalling. You know exactly what I have called you to do, and you know I am up to the challenge of making you successful. Now get moving!”
But God did not. He once again gave Gideon the sign he requested. God's mercy and goodness to this man apparently knew no limits. He was not about to give up and find somebody else.
A Swiss theologian and church historian named J. H. Merle d'Aubigné wrote in the 1800s, “God, who prepares his work through the ages, accomplishes it by the weakest instruments, when his time is come, that the work may be seen to be of God and not of man. To effect great results by imperceptible means, such is the law of God.”2
This has been God's merciful pattern through the centuries as he has dealt with faulty vessels of clay.
The Reluctant Choir Director
I need look no further than my wife, Carol, to find a modern example of God using a hesitant person. She was never trained to read music, let alone write it. She has always found it extremely difficult to stand up in front of a crowd. I remember during our first pastorate in Newark, New Jersey, when she hesitantly invited a few women to come over to our house to form a singing group. Carol was so nervous about the rehearsal that she couldn't eat the entire day. She actually threw up before they arrived—and again after they left!
Carol has said to me privately more than once, “Why is it that God called me to a ministry that often involves things I find so hard to do?” I have had to talk her out of resigning from the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir dozens of times. She agonizes over things that many others wouldn't think twice about.
One time I happened to go with Carol to a retreat in Nashville sponsored by her recording company. It was a low-key affair for artists simply to pray together and get to know each other. At one point a group of a dozen or so sat in a circle. The moderator asked for each one in turn to say a few words about what he or she did and why.
Carol looked at me across the circle as if to say, Jim, if you love me … get me out of this! I can't do this. They were not asking for a lecture on Einstein's theory of relativity. All they expected was an informal sharing from the heart. Well, it so happened that before Carol's turn came to speak, there was a lunch break. She didn't go to eat. I went up to the hotel room and found her shaking and in tears. “I can't do this,” she cried.
I also remember the first time we rented Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan for a concert and gospel outreach. The hour came when those massive stage elevators would lift Carol and the choir up three floors to appear in front of 6,000 people, where she would have to turn and give a brief welcome before the first song. She froze—and almost fainted.
Yet God has called Carol to a ministry that requires her to stretch. Just like Gideon, she has raised vigorous objections. Her objections have consistently been overruled. Today she leads a choir of nearly 300 voices. In 2005, this woman who always wanted to avoid the spotlight walked out onto a Los Angeles stage to collect her sixth Grammy Award. Every year she leads a music conference attended by about a thousand other musicians, most of whom have far more training than she does.
Carol has grown more confident in God. In church services it is not unusual now for her to take the microphone, totally unprompted, to give the people an exhortation she feels the Lord has given her. She would never have done that earlier in our ministry. She is more willing than ever for God to push her outside her comfort zone. Every time she does this kind of thing, it is an act of faith on her part. She has to look away from her weakness and reluctance, focusing instead on the God of all strength and confidence.
If God's Spirit is upon you, no résumé is too weak. If God is calling you to something more, your perceived lack of qualifications is no longer relevant. God's strength is far greater than your weakness. God's grace is much stronger than your fears. And his plan is not subject to your objections.
Faith for the Battle
After working through his objections with God, Gideon went out and won a spectacular victory over the Midianites in the most unusual manner. God trimmed his force from 32,000 volunteers down to just 300. They went into battle only with trumpets and with jars concealing torches inside. It was another ridiculous war strategy like the one Joshua used back at Jericho. Yet, when they broke their jars to reveal their lighting in the middle of the night and began blowing their trumpets as if it were New Year's Eve, the Midianites thought for all the world that they were surrounded by a massive army. Pandemonium broke loose. In the flickering shadows, the Midianites jumped up and began hacking at each other with their swords. They ran for any escape they could find, dashing toward the Jordan River.
Gideon sent word to the nearby Israelite towns and villages for reinforcements to help close off the various roads. By the end of the engagement, “a hundred and twenty thousand swordsmen had fallen” (Judg. 8:10). The onetime-hesitant farmer had turned into a brilliant general, setting the land free of its oppressors.
Gideon even wound up with his name enrolled in the Faith Hall of Fame along with national heroes such as Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses. Hebrews 11:32–34 says,
And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon … who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised … whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.
We don't normally think of Gideon as a great man of faith. That word itself appears nowhere in the Judges 6–8 account of his life. We more naturally associate the word “doubt” with Gideon. Yet the New Testament affirms that what he accomplished was done through faith. That is what turned his weakness into strength. He eventually believed that God could be trusted, and he stepped out in faith to do what God had asked.
I find it interesting that we Christians are often confused about what to do when our faith is weak. We clearly understand that God is our source for other things. For example, when we struggle to obey his command to love our neighbor or turn the other cheek, we pray, “Oh, God, give me more love. Pour your love into my heart so I can overcome this resentment.”
Likewise, his instructions for us to be humble, to share with others, to forgive—these are all hard for us at times. What do we do? We run to God and say, “I'm willing to do this, but I need your grace. Please make me able to follow through.”
When it comes to faith, however, we think for some reason that we have to solve the shortage all by ourselves. We have to “try harder.” We have to muster up faith from within ourselves. We have to psyche ourselves into a heightened state of believing.
That is not how the desperate father of the boy with convulsions thought when he came to Jesus at the foot of the Mount of Transfiguration. The father openly stated, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). He admitted that there was a piece of unbelief in his mind that he could not whip, and he pleaded with Jesus to help him. Such honesty did not disqualify him at all; in fact, it resulted in deliverance for his tormented son.
The disciples made only two major requests of Jesus during their long time with him: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1) and “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5). This second request led immediately to Jesus' analogy of the tiny mustard seed. Faith is like that, he said; it may start small, but it can uproot strong trees before it's finished.
If your faith is weak and you feel overwhelmed by what God is proposing for you to do, spend time in the Bible and at the throne of grace, saying, “Lord, I know I should believe you; I know you keep your promises in your Word. But I'm feeling overwhelmed by what I see. It's too big for me. I can't imagine it happening. Help me, Lord! Give me faith to believe.”
The Bible clearly includes a special kind of faith in a list of the Spirit's gifts (see 1 Cor. 12:9). That alone ought to tell us that we don't have to manufacture any kind of faith by ourselves. God is waiting and wanting to impart it into our lives. We don't need to struggle. Moreover, we don't need to chant the name-it-and-claim-it mantra of “I believe! I confess this pain in my body does not exist! I am an overcomer!” Get the focus off of “I” and turn your attention to the source of all goodness and power. Run to God and his Word for the faith you need.
More than once during the high-pressure days of relocation to our new church campus, when I felt overwhelmed by the urgent financial requirements, I simply retreated to an upstairs room of my house to sit with my Bible in God's presence. “Lord, I feel beat up,” I would pray. “There's no end to the cost of this project; every week is a new demand. God, just feed my soul today. Give me fresh faith for this day.” I would open the Word and read it for hours, asking God to make it alive in my spirit. The truths of Scripture and the dramatic stories of God's deliverance would overcome my trepidation. I could stand up and drive to the office with renewed confidence in a God who promised not to fail.
How Faith Actually Works
Faith is more than just mental affirmation. It is more than a theory. It is a deeply spiritual, even supernatural, conviction down in your soul that God can be trusted to do what he said he would do.
Three things happen in the development and operation of faith:
1. God's Promise Possesses Us
When we are possessed by God's promise, we can overcome negative feelings and what our sense of sight often tells us. Like Joshua and Caleb back at Kadesh in the desert, the promise of God towers over the obstacles scattered across the landscape. The promise of God proves stronger than our fluctuating emotions. We are locked in to his guarantee; it controls us.
It is not just a case of seeing a little improvement and saying, “Oh, now I really believe!” Some people pray for their wayward children, and if they sense a bit of softening or openness, they get excited … but if there's a turn for the worse, they fall into despair. By contrast, those who are anchored in God's promise keep their eyes on God and are sure he will come through. They know that “the one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it” (1 Thess. 5:24).
2. God's Plan Possesses Us
Being possessed by God's plan helps us rise above our limited human wisdom. Gideon got to the point of accepting that God's battle strategy could be trusted. Only 300 men? Well, okay—if that was what God said to do, Gideon would go along. This was one of the key moments in the faith walk of this man.
Our intellect fights against this kind of thing. We often think we have a smarter idea. But God's plans frequently involve risk, whereas we are “risk-averse.” If he doesn't work within the time frame we want, we can fall back into the error of planning things ourselves. This kind of behavior is clearly not a work of faith. Only a radical, desperate faith will hold us in times of uncertainty.
3. God's Power Possesses Us,
Rather Than Our Own
God's power transcends our self-effort as well as our desire for “a piece of the action.” God ends up getting all the credit this way. The result is something only he can accomplish.
God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He loves us more than we can imagine. And he calls all of us to play a role in building up his kingdom on earth. He still overrules our many objections and bids us to trust in him alone.
To hold back from following the Lord's sometimes bold initiatives may seem like the safer route—but we will never be happy or find fulfillment that way. The deepest experience of joy in life comes from being in the center of God's will, no matter how precarious that may seem.
Whenever God directs us in a new way, even if it seems scary at first, we need to surrender to his purposes. He will be right there with us everywhere he leads. We were made for more. We cannot let our fears and hesitations keep us from accepting God's wonderful call, which is always greater than we can imagine on our own. Not in our wildest fantasies could we devise a way to chase out the Midianites that oppress us. But God can. He simply asks for our cooperation.