A Garland for Gideon
A Garland for Gideon
Judges 8:22-23
Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also, for you have saved us from the hand of Midian.” Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the LORD will rule over you.”
Look how far the LORD has brought this once sheepish, once shy, once doubtful man over time. Talk about a meteoric rise. The LORD found him in the shadows, beating out wineskins under candlelight, working in secret, and He called his name from under the terebinth tree, “Gideon, o man of valor—I have chosen you to deliver my people.” “Me?”, young Gideon replied. “Oh no—not me, LORD—I’m from the smallest clan in the smallest tribe in Israel, and I’m the very least in my family. Just look at me: I’m out here doing work at midnight because I’m so riddled with fear. No way I’ve got what it takes to lead a nation!” Oh, but God never gets a recruit wrong. He’s never once been proven unwise in His choice of candidate. And if He sees valor in a man or a woman of His choosing, if He sees faithfulness and strength and integrity, either it’s because such virtue is dormant and needs the right occasion to come forth, or because He plans to develop it along the way. But one things’ clear: between the shadowy man we first met in Judges 7 and the kingly general we see now in Judges 8, there’s been a great deal of trepidation that needed overcoming, and doubts that needed assuaging, and callouses that needed developing, and experience that needed amassing, and battles that needed fighting, and trials that needed enduring, and fleeces that needed laying out before the LORD in pursuit of clarity.
The fact that thousands of Gideon’s peers are now gazing up at him with deference, saying, “Be our king,” and the fact that he turns down their request and reminds them of who their true King is, is a stirring testament to the work God has accomplished in his heart all along the way. King or not, Gideon joins that long triumphal procession of saints who stepped up when called, and stepped out in spite of fear, and crowned his generation with the garland of praise.