Read His Words Before Ours!
Judges 7:3-23
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Ephesians 6:10-12
Relentless, Day 10
“I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the one who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. I was the lion who you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that I came to shore where a man sat wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”
My eyes began to water as I read (and by read, I mean listened to, because I absolutely listened to this in audio-book form) this paragraph Aslan spoke to Shasta, the hero of this story.
That realization that rushes over each new reader of “The Horse and His Boy”, is the same realization that rushed over me just a few months ago, when God gave me a revelation that altered my perspective on the last ten months of my life.
As I’ve been in my own kind of battle for months, I’ve been amazed every time I’ve seen God’s fingerprint show up in an unexpected way, just like the lion for Shasta. I imagined myself climbing this exhausting mountain with God occasionally choosing to reach out and touch me to give me a push along the way. But one day, God showed me the reason I kept seeing His fingerprints around my life isn’t because He was choosing to reach for me here and help me there…
It was because He was holding me.
And when things are held, fingerprints naturally end up everywhere.
I wasn’t being lightly touched.
I was being tightly held.
Ah-Ha Moment!
Shasta, the presumed-to-be orphan boy, who was journeying from the land of slavery to the land of freedom on the back of a talking-horse, could see, at last, that he wasn’t the most unfortunate boy, with his continual run-ins with lions and life as the son of a cruel fisherman. Shasta’s life was held by Aslan; the great Lion of Love.
There was love amidst every battle.
Oh, how I’ve seen God’s love amidst my own battles!
Not-so-coincidentally (thanks to God, who always seems to make things like this happen), the writing of this journey coincided with my reading of C. S. Lewis’ third book in the Chronicles of Narnia series. So, it is easy to compare this book and battles fought and won with Gideon, the prophet of old who defeated a 120,000 army with only 300 men.
In Judges chapter six, we read about God calling Gideon, and Gideon testing God… several times. Our ever-patient Father responded to Gideon’s tests each time, displaying how God would indeed deliver Israel by Gideon’s hand.
Gideon felt small.
Inadequate.
The odds were stacked against him.
He could hardly believe that God would use little ol’ him to bring victory to the Israelites.
I’ve felt that way, too.
Small.
Inadequate.
Stupid and weak.
I’ve felt like the odds were completely stacked against me.
I’ve believed that there was no way God could use me to bring glory to His name.
And yet.
God chose to use Gideon…
God chooses to use me.
And you.
So there Gideon was…
Feeling like he was already a lost cause.
The troupes gathered together, 32,000 in number, significantly smaller than the 120,000-member opposing army. Still, God told Gideon he had too many.
If God handed Midian over to Israel, Israel would only praise themselves and their own strength. Victory must obviously belong to the Lord God.
22,000 men left for home when Gideon commanded only the fearless to remain, and his small army dwindled even smaller to 10,000.
Still not small enough for God.
He needed to be sure that it all pointed back to Him. There could be no way anyone could ever assume victory was won by human strength. 10,000 turned to 300.
300 men.
Against 120,000.
Ridiculous odds.
Remember, God had already promised Gideon Israel would win this battle…
But oh how Gideon must have quaked inside. He’d already doubted God calling him into the battle, and now he entered with a 1 to 400 soldier ratio.
Gideon and all 300 of his men were upheld by God.
He used the weakness of their numbers to showcase God’s magnificent strength.
Sisters, God uses us when we are at our weakest.
He will use that season of feeling small and weak to demonstrate how He is our strength, which ultimately brings Him glory because our story….it really points to HIM!
We’ll never be “strong enough”, if we were, we wouldn’t need Jesus to save us,
and that’s the whole point of the Gospel right there!
Jesus + nothing = salvation.
God + a measly army = victory.
He is the lion pushing us towards our calling,
bringing comfort when we are trembling,
strengthening and upholding us to be all He has called us to be.
His mighty strength surrounds us, holds us, and chooses to use our woeful weakness to make His name known!
He is the God who doesn’t look at odds being in our favor,
– because there are no “odds” with Him –
He just always wins.
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