Valor

 August 12, 2021

“The angel of the LORD appears and said to [Gideon] “The LORD is with. You, you mighty man of valor.” Gideon said to him, “If the LORD is with us, why is all this happening to us? Where are the miracles our fathers told us about? …The LORD has forsaken us.” —Judges 6:12-13

Times were bad; God’s people needed help, and they needed it now, so God stepped in with a message for a particular man who was questioning his nation’s present state of affairs. But Gideon only heard part of the angel’s announcement. (BTW, the word “angel” simply means “messenger;” it doesn’t refer to critters with wings, harps, and halos). The angel’s message didn’t match up with what Gideon was experiencing, so he made the mistake of putting his trust in his experience instead of God’s Word, and by so doing, missed God’s evaluation of him. His life experiences told him he was a nobody, abandoned by God, a victim of circumstance, while God saw him in a very different light. “Go in this might of yours,” the angels said—a might Gideon didn’t feel and didn’t believe he had. “How can I save Israel? I am the lowest of the low.” (6:15) It took plenty of persuasion before Gideon was able to own up to his calling.

Things aren’t much different today. There’s a lot in life that isn’t as it should be; people are oppressed, restricted, and downtrodden by circumstances beyond their control. They are angry, but feel helpless, victims of nameless bureaucrats making life and death decisions over them. How we see ourselves makes all the difference. Gideon’s situation didn’t change with this angelic visit. It wasn’t until he began to see himself as God saw him that things shifted. What about me? Am I letting circumstances tell me who I am? Do I let the physical limitations of my age, or COVID related weariness define my existence? Do we let a bad marriage, a pink slip, political affiliation, a diagnosis of cancer, or a failing grade define us? 

For me, am I allowing my image of what retirement should be to become an idol before which I bow and worship? Or will I rise up in my might to face and defeat the enemy? St. Paul said that in Jesus Christ, “the old has passed away; all things have become new.” (1 Corinthians 5:17). My identity is in Christ—who I am in him, who he says I am. How I may feel at a given moment is never the issue. Feelings come and go. What is eternal, and what gives solid footing for this life and the next, is Jesus Christ who died that I might live in him. “Mighty man of valor?” I may not feel it, but if God says it, it is so, and this life can throw at me nothing greater than God’s Word.