Sunday 29 Apr 2012

Sunday Reading: Judges 6:16-27

Key Verse: Judges 6:27
27  Then Gideon took ten men of his servants, and did as the LORD had said unto him: and so it was, because he feared his father's household, and the men of the city, that he could not do it by day, that he did it by night.

Devotion:
I am sure that I am not alone when I say that one of the biggest problems I have is putting things off until ‘a bit later’; and quite often it has landed me in trouble doing that. But then all you have to do is think about all the things that you love doing and see how they always seem to happen on time or that you make time for them so that you can enjoy them. Well, just maybe, we have got our priorities in a bit of a twist sometimes… and deciding which things we should be doing is what catches us out much of the time.

We don’t know what would have been going on in Gideon’s mind at the time this all happened, but we could probably take a guess that it would be similar to what we would be thinking if we were in his situation. The country was under subjection and they even had to hide their food from the Midianites for fear of it being taken. If we were in his shoes we would probably be pleading to God to do something before we ran out of puff. But what would we do after we had lifted up our prayers and requests to God? Would we sit back and wait for God to do something?

Taking a leaf out of Gideon’s example here is a good way forward for us. If we are requesting something from God then we should not be sitting back and expecting God to do everything but trying to find out from God what it is that we should be doing whilst we wait for His advice. It is no good waiting for God to send us a letter in the post because that is just not going to happen! We need to be constantly looking to His Word for guidance in where we should be headed.

Gideon continued to do what was required of him in his normal life; hence the threshing. But then Gideon was confronted by the angel of the Lord and was told in no uncertain terms what was expected. Gideon’s response was not one of ‘OK Lord I’ll wait for you to call me back’ but rather to get ready for that call so that when it happened, he would already be ready and able. We have already been given a calling from God to go out into all the world and spread the Gospel. We need to be ready and able for when the Lord does return, just as He has promised us that He will! Being ready for God must be high on our list of priorities, otherwise we have our priorities mixed up!

Points to Ponder:
Are you still waiting for a call?

Are you already following God’s requests?