Invisible Potential for Impossible Postions

In Judges, chapter 6, we read an incredible story about a man named Gideon.

After a season of disobedience, the Lord took the Israelites and put them under the care of the cruel Midianites.  Israel, in their oppression, cried out to God for rescue and He answered.

God first uses an angel of the Lord to send a message to Gideon saying the words that somehow pierce my heart.  Seven simple, yet powerful words, “Mighty here, the Lord is with you!”  (verse 12)

And yet this would-be great warrior of God didn’t feel much like a hero at all.  At the time he was found threashing wheat at the bottom of a winepress in an effort to hide away himself and his grain from the brutal Midianites.

In fact, his response is one that likens more to a fear-filed, doubtful and embittered coward, than that of a “mighty hero.”  He says this in verse 13, “If the Lord is with us why has all this happened to us?  And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about?  Didn’t they say, ‘The Lord brought us out of Egypt?’  But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.”

He’s frustrated.
He’s exhausted from the running and hiding.
He’s feeling resentful.

And then God shows up.

Verse 14 is the sweetest in all the story.  “Then the Lord turned to him and said, ‘Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites.  I am sending you!’”

The KJV says it this way, “And the Lord looked upon him.” 

He looked at him.

And it changed everything.

“Go with the strength you have.”  God said.

And I wonder how “strong” he actually felt.
Because we see it in his response.  “How can I rescue Israel?  My tribe is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family.”  (verse 16)

But the Lord said in reply, “I will be with you.”

I will be with you.  That’s how you’ll do it.

Because it’s not really about your strength at all, Gideon.
It’s MY strength.

So you go with whatever little amount you have, and I will supply the rest.
In other words God has given a small supply of strength, but it’s going to take Gideon’s “yes” to initiate the “more” God longs to supply.  He calls Gideon a “Mighty hero”, and then He makes him so.  He was advancing him before Gideon was in true possession of the actual character trait.

Gideon possessed the qualities already, but they lay dormant.  He was mighty, however he had not yet received an opportunity to exercise it, so it went unrecognized.

Gideon, imprisoned with his untapped potential, was skeptical, but God aroused within him the very skill set that was necessary to carry out a seemingly impossible task.

And I think about the times He’s called me to carry out impossibilities too powerful for my potential… too difficult for my deftness.  And yet in His call He doesn’t consider our present deficiency… He looks to our future capability.  And He calls what’s impossible.. probable.

Because we go with His strength… not out own.

And that is all we will ever need to accomplish all He’s set before us.