Some Thoughts

God absolutely amazes me. The more I realize the depth and the gravity of what He has done for me the more dumbfounded, grateful, driven, humbled, and silenced I become. I find even more astonishing the fact that He can use anyone...ANYONE...for His Glory. Think about it. I often catch myself thinking that there is no way that God can use me. I think about all of my shortcomings and flaws and because of those I think why would God ever want to use me. There are tons of stories in the Bible where God uses the most unlikely people to accomplish things for Him. Moses hated speaking in public (maybe as much as I do), Abraham lacked faith, but I think my favorite story is about Gideon. Talk about unlikely candidates. The story begins in Judges 6:11 "Then the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abieyrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it from the Midianites." I don't know if you can picture this like I can, but bare with me. The angel of the Lord came and sat down under a tree and watched as Gideon is threshing wheat in a wine press. I don't know much about wheat threshing, but I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be done in a wine press. Wine presses back in the day were about 6-8 feet deep and so Gideon figured it would be a good place to hide from the Midianites while he threshed the grain. Ok, so picture this from the angel's perspective from under the tree. Just a short distance away there's a hole in the ground and in regular intervals little puffs of wheat come flying up from the hole and then flop back down. Now, as you approach the hole and look down you see a man covered in dust and wheat because no wind can blow away the chaf like on the threshing floors. I hope you're following this because to me that is a really funny picture. Verse 12, "The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him 'The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior." The angel called him a "valiant warrior." Gideon...the wheat covered guy hiding in the wine press because he's afraid. The angel then goes on to tell Gideon that God wants him to defeat the Midianites...fast forward: The Lord uses Gideon and 300 men to defeat the entire Midianite army! There is a lot more in this story, but the part that is the coolest to me is the fact that the angel calls Gideon a valiant warrior even though he isn't acting like one. God sees through our actions, our doubts, our fears, our wretchedness, and He sees who He has created us to be! What an awesome thought. Again, this post might be a little random (this seems to be a recurring theme), but thats what I felt like I needed to share for now. Blessings.