Big and Small

Gideon and his three hundred men, exhausted yet keeping up the pursuit, came to the Jordan and crossed it. -Judges 8:4 (NIV)

I missed it in yesterday's assigned readings. It was there and I just read right over it. Gideon was going to battle against the Midianites. He had received his sign; he was ready to go. But God said that Gideon's army was too big. God was afraid that after defeating the Midianites, Israel would take (or get) the credit for the victory. So God downsized Gideon's army to roughly 300 people. But some doubted that such a small army could win. Gideon had faith.

Even though I read right over it yesterday, in today's reading I was drawn to the smallness of Gideon's army and the reason: so that God would get the glory. And then I remembered a conversation that I had with our associate pastor about five years ago. She informed me that a group of women wanted to begin coming together for prayer each week at our church. I didn't think too much of it at the time but this conversation came on the heels of another conversation that I'd had about our church being on the verge of doing some great things.

Fast forward five years. Recently, someone told me that they had spent much of their life in our church and that they had never seen the Holy Spirit at work like they see it now. Maybe they were just saying that to make me feel good as a pastor. But if it's true (and I have no reason to doubt this person's sincerity), I know one of the main reasons why. About five years ago, a small group of women began gathering at the church to pray. You may be tempted to think that such a small group couldn't possibly transform the spiritual life of a church. But Gideon, God, and I know better. Perhaps the small number of women praying at our church was by God's design. Perhaps God wanted to use this small group to do big things so that credit couldn't be attributed to anyone or anything else but God.

May God grant you the grace to see how God can use something small to achieve something big today.



If you're interested in reading through the Bible in a year, tomorrow's suggested readings are Judges 9-10, Psalm 49, and 1 Corinthians 16.