Gideon's Flu

The LORD said to Gideon, “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her, announce now to the people, 'Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.” – Judges 7:2

So… I think I’ve caught the Gideon flu, which is unfortunate but yet also very fortunate at the same time. Let me explain…

I am currently in the process of completing a 6 week economics term at my local community college. Unfortunately, 3 of those 6 weeks overlaps my Spring semester at Biola; this means that in order to accomplish both, I must drive back and forth from home to Biola every other day. As if adding macro-economics homework onto my normal Biola workload isn’t enough, I’m also adding in about an 1 ½ of driving every day. I’m not complaining though; so far it has been working out just fine. Well, it was, at least, until I caught Gideon's flu…

The other day as I was driving back to Biola, I started giving myself an encouraging pep-talk. It went something like this: “You can do this. It’ll be hard, but it’s only 3 weeks. You can handle it. Just keep good time management and everything will work out fine. Don’t worry about it. You’ve got it under control. You’re gonna make it through these 3 weeks…”

But then, shortly after that I started to feel a little tingle in my throat – you know, the type of tingle you get that eventually turns into a sore throat and then a massive cold hits you like a hurricane and before you know it, you’ve got sinus infections the size of Mt. St. Helens and a runny nose that runs faster than the Snake River. Anyways, as I felt this tingle coming on, I started to get panicky; I knew exactly what it meant and what was coming. My self-pep-talk soon turned into a Q&A time with God… well, I guess it was more like a whine-&-complain session. My conversation immediately switched from: “You can do it!” to “God, ummm, what are you doing? I can’t get sick right now; I don’t have the time to be blowing my nose every 2 minutes and taking lots of naps right now! Can’t this just wait 3 more weeks?” I even started to negotiate with Him, asking if we could just postpone this little cold for a couple weeks and I would promise to be one happy little camper both now and when I’m sick.

But during that time, God helped me to realize that I had it all wrong. My self-encouragement pep-talk was completely off base. The truth of the matter is, I can’t do it. I don’t have it all under control. There is no possible way I can make it through these 3 weeks whether I’m sick or as healthy as a horse. At least, I can’t do it on my own. If I’m going to survive this busyness, it is not going to be because I triumphed and figured out how to manage my time on my own; it is only through God that I can do this, in fact, it is only through God that I can do anything at all. Anything I do apart from God is worthless and inefficient. Only with God can I live, move, breath, drive up and down the hill, and finish the work that needs to be done (while still having time to blog!). As I felt that tingle in my throat, it was as if God was telling me that it is only through Him that I can accomplish anything; and if it takes pulling a “Gideon” on me to make me understand that, then that’s what it will take. (God reduced Gideon’s army of 32,000+ to 300 men in order to demonstrate that their victory over the Mideanites was by God’s strength alone – Judges 7.) The more I talked to God about getting rid of my cold, the more I realized it was actually a blessing for me, in that it allowed me to place all my trust in Him, especially during this time; it reminded me that I don’t need to struggle to carry all my burdens – He’s already got them in His hands and taken care of. Now, as I continue through my last week and a half of this busyness, I am handing over my time to God; it is His to begin with and I fully declare that He knows what to do with it better than I do. As I survive this time, even with my Gideon’s flu, I recognize that it isn’t me doing any of the work at all. It is God working in and through me.

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. - 2 Corinthians 12:9b-10