What is Your 300?

What is the task facing you that seems overwhelming and impossible? Where do you feel ill-equipped? Perhaps it is handling the demands of supervising your children completing virtual school? Maybe it is keeping your kids entertained and happy while avoiding sibling rivalry? Was your spouse’s deployment return delayed and you feel like you just can’t make it until they return?

I am concluding a Bible study on Judges 6-8 in which I’ve learned practical lessons about trusting God with what seems inconceivable. Gideon was asked to lead Israel to battle the Midianites who had been oppressing and impoverishing the Israelites for years. Gideon was not a confident man or warrior; however, he was called by God. So that Israel would not be tempted to take credit for their defeat of the MIdianites, God reduced their army from 32,000 to 300 men. Gideon just had 300 men - humanly inadequate to achieve success in any logical battle. God asked and expected Gideon to take just 300 to battle against the 135,000 Midianites. He was drastically outnumbered.

But, as you all know the story, Gideon and his men achieved victory, but they did not defeat them with regular weapons of warfare. God clearly instructed Gideon to abandon spear and swords and to take trumpets, clay pots, and torches with them. I can just imagine that Gideon received God’s allowed weapons and must have thought it seemed ridiculous to expect they would battle without weapons of warfare. Surprisingly, God was able to bring victory with a pathetically small army and strange weapons. God’s ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8). When we have an assignment given by God, there is a gap between what we can do in our own abilities and what God can accomplish. The key to victory in God’s economy is trusting God to fill the gap and turning to him for instructions before we plow ahead. This is done through prayer and taking time to wait for the Lord’s leading and listen to His instructions, even when they don’t seem to make sense.

Gideon did obey God’s odd instructions. Not only did he give the Israelites victory, he did it without requiring the 300 fighting men to exchange any blows. God turned the Midianite warriors on one another, and they used their swords to kill their comrade in arms. Those that did not perish by the sword frantically fled.

In God’s providence, He takes the weak and brings victory. He takes the humble and gives them success. He doesn’t require physical weapons but requires we surrender our physical weapons for spiritual ones, prayer and trusting God, one step at a time.

So, what is your 300 today? What seems unthinkable? Submit it to God and trust Him to do the inconceivable with what you offer Him in obedience.