An angel came to Gideon and told him a pretty typical message:
“The Lord is with thee”. (Judges 6:12)
Aren’t we told this a lot too?
God is aware of us.
His Spirit is with us.
The Savior walks with us.
But Gideon pushes back on this idea:
“Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us?
“and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of…?” (Judges 6:13)
Doesn’t Gideon’s logic sound familiar, too??
If the Lord is really with me, then why are all of these terrible things happening?
Where are the miracles you promised?
The angel doesn’t completely answer Gideon’s question in the moment, other than pointing him toward future blessings.
But how would you respond to Gideon’s question?
I usually try to focus on one point in each post that I write, but I’ve had a lot of thoughts swirling around on this topic lately, so I’m going to share a few ideas and you can take the idea that resonates the most right now.
– The reward for being righteous always comes. Always. Usually not when we want it, and sometimes not even in this life. But we have to trust in God’s promise that it will come.
– The real blessing in the moment is peace and joy on the inside, despite turbulent circumstances.
– Life can’t just be perfect for those who believe in God and miserable for those who don’t. That would take away the element of faith, and would hinder agency.
– Although I 100000% relate to this feeling, I can also see how spiritually immature it is to just want blessings all the time. A spiritually mature individual loves God and Jesus with their whole heart, mind, and soul, and the circumstances literally don’t matter at all.
What do you think? How would you respond to Gideon?
Because Gideon isn’t the only one asking this question.
It’s everywhere. It’s on social media. It’s in our church classes. It’s being asked over and over in our minds.
And I think there is a whole new level of spiritual understanding available when we start to realize that the angel’s declaration of the Lord being with us IS the miracle we’ve been looking for all along.
Happy Studying!
-Cali Black
One Response
I so love this!
You put this so beautifully!
It’s in the ‘hard’ that we truly show our faith and it is strengthened as we feel the peace and assurance of the Savior walking through it with us. It IS a miracle that we can feel joy, no matter what is happening or not happening around us as we focus on Jesus Christ.