Confidence Ain't Always Easy

Last week, I wrote about Gideon's confidence in God. I wrote about how we should strive to have that level of confidence in our Creator. The fact is, though, that this can be hard for us to achieve. I mean, come on. Gideon was a judge of Israel. How can we possibly relate to that? I'll tell you: Gideon lacked confidence, once upon a time...
Before the thorn-scraping, before the conquest of the Midian army, there was a young Israelite farmer named Gideon. He was out working on his dad's farm when an angel appeared, telling him to go lead God's people against their oppressors.

Unlike what we saw from Gideon last week, our hero was, well, not so heroic. He stutters and stammers around, whining and making excuses. He told the angel how he was weak, and so was his family, and that he was no warrior.

He said to Him, “Please, Lord, how can I deliver Israel? Look, my family is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.” -Judges 6:15, HCSB

However, God isn't really into excuses. When He decides that we should do something, He isn't real apt to say, "oh, never mind. Bummer that plan fell through." No, God gets what God wants, and if He wants you to do something, you will. So He persists.

“But I will be with you,” the Lord said to him. “You will strike Midian down as if it were one man.” -Judges 6:16

If God told me that, I'd like to think that would send the confidence meter soaring. However, given how Gideon responds, I'm not super positive. Turns out, even an angel telling you that God would make it to where you could whip an entire army wasn't enough for Gideon. It took not one, not two, but three miraculous signs from God to convince Gideon to even attempt to gather an army for an attack, and then it took another one to get Gideon to actually lead the attack on Midian.

That, my friends, gives us hope. If this man, clearly not a winner of the "Most Faith-Filled" award, can eventually get to the point of confidence in God that we saw last week, surely we can.

Will you strive to listen to God and put your faith in Him, or will you be a coward like Gideon was when the angel first appeared? That's a question for all of us.