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Lopsided War
by Patty Wysong The kids were excited when I told them we were going to be playing Tug-of-War. I laid out the rope and divided the class onto sides. The right side of the group would be pulling against the left side of the group. Sounds good, right? Wrong! All the big kids were on the right side of the class, and all the little kids were on the left side. Vance thought it was great. "Yeah. This is gonna be easy!" He was ready to go. The little kids held the rope while looking at me. They knew they were doomed. "Okay, the teams just don't look right. Let me fix things here." All the little kids were greatly relieved. That is until... "Cade and Isaac, you guys move over to the big kids' side, that will leave Jonah and Brynnan. That ought to do it, don't you think?" Cade, in his great wisdom, noticed something. "But they're the littlest ones! There is no way..." I hate to admit it, but I interrupted him. "Oh! You're right! Randy!" I turned to him. "Can you play tug-of-war as well as you can teach?" Randy just stood up and smiled. Jonah and Brynnan looked mightily relieved because Randy is almost as big as Goliath. "Randy, would you go help that team." I pointed to the right and everyone's mouths fell open. Jonah and Brynnan were still by themselves on the left. "What?" I asked. "Don't you think that Jonah and Brynnan could win this match of tug-of-war?" Their odds of winning were about the same as Gideon's chance of beating the Midianites. And something similar happened to Gideon. God sent home almost all of Gideon's army, leaving him with just 300 men to fight against more than 100,000 Midianites. How do you think Gideon felt? Scared? Like there was no way that he could possibly beat the Midianites? Yup. I think so! But who won? Gideon and the Israelites won. How on earth could they defeat an enemy THAT huge? They couldn't, and they knew it. But God could. And God did. When Gideon couldn't do anything, God took over and defeated Israel's enemies. In fact, that's what God intended all along. In Judges 7:2 God says, "for Israel would become become boastful, saying, 'My own power has delivered me.'" God wanted Israel to understand that He was bigger and greater than their enemies and their problems. Gideon wasn't a hero. He was scared! He was just a normal guy that chose to believe and obey God. That's something that we can do! We can believe that God is bigger than any problem we have and that He is more powerful than anything and anybody. Actually, God is more powerful than everything and everybody, and we can rely on HIS power when we're facing scary things. That's what Paul meant in 2 Corinthians 12:10 "Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong." When we're weak, we have to rely on God's strength. God is all powerful and He wants us to rely on Him--not on ourselves! For if God is for us, who is against us? Romans 8:31 The account of Gideon's lopsided battle against the Midianites is found in Judges 7. Patty Wysong is a Christian wife and homeschool mom of 5 who is passionate about wrapping lessons in pretty packages that will point others to God. Blog: http://pattywysong.blogspot.com/ Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |