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The Warrior in the Winepress

Picture the scene. Gideon is crouched inside a winepress—a stone pit normally used for crushing grapes—trying to thresh wheat without being spotted by the Midianite raiders who have been stealing his people’s harvest for seven years running. He’s hiding. He’s exhausted. He’s doing the wrong job in the wrong place because the right place isn’t safe anymore. And the angel of the Lord walks up, looks at this terrified man hiding in a hole, and calls him a “mighty warrior.”

The gap between what Gideon felt about himself and what God called him is a powerful insight. Gideon’s response was essentially, “Are you talking to me? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I’m the runt of my family.”

He had a long list of reasons he was the wrong guy. God wasn’t reading from the same list.

Friend, this is how God sees you! Not the cowering, hiding, why-bother version of yourself, but the person He created you to become. He speaks to your potential long before your performance catches up. Your job isn’t to talk Him out of it—it’s to walk into it.

Pray

Father, help me agree with what You’ve already said about me, even when I don’t feel it yet. Amen.