A Word that Could Move Mountains
Judges 6:11-12 &15
Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the LORD … said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.” … And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
Our Lord’s appearance to young Gideon by the terebinth tree outside a secret winepress remains my favorite Theophanous appearance in the entire Old Testament. Why? Because it is so marvelously mundane. There’s no flaming bush to lure Gideon’s curiosity. There’s no thundering voice speaking through a mountaintop torrent. There’s no shepherd staff transforming into a king cobra nor a Red Sea parting to form a highway nor a cloud of honeyed wafers falling like snow. Just the LORD of heaven meeting His child in the crevices of common life to offer a word that will change his world.
Oh how differently my life might play out today if God were to come down right now from highest Heaven, sit down under the river birch adjacent to my lawn chair, watch me beat out these meager words in my two dollar notebook with a 25 cent blue Bic pen, and interrupt my feeble labor to whisper, “I’m here with you, O mighty man of valor.” Would I ever be the same after that? Would I ever walk out the door on a Monday morning with backpack in tote, feeling insignificant? Would I ever finish tucking my kids in bed at night and close the door feeling burned out? Oh no—not if the LORD of heaven would choose to sit down by me—the least of saints—and point to the insignificant, error-laced work of my hands, and call it a work of valor! No longer would I find myself chipping away at mountains. Oh no—from that moment on, I’d move them.
Friend, does your toil for the LORD seem inconsequential today? Are you beating away at the next meal for your family, or the next load of laundry, or the next computer code? Well, look up! And listen well! The Angel of the LORD has a word for you, too.