Are you encountering or have you encountered situations in life where you wonder where God is? Good news! You are not alone. I have been there and done that and so have notable characters in the Bible.
The man Gideon was introduced to us at a time when Israel was being constantly raided by the Midianites. He was threshing wheat in a winepress in order to hide it from their enemies who came in at will and carted away all the crops that the people had harvested, thereby impoverishing them.
The threshing floor is a stone platform, usually located at the outskirts of the village so that the wind can blow the useless chaff away after the grain has been extracted. This makes it an easy target for the enemy who can see the chaff from afar off and carry out their raids. One the other hand, a winepress is usually a pit or hole dug within the vineyard where the grapes are pressed and the juice drained to make wine. This was where Gideon got creative. The winepress was hidden and therefore could not be easily seen. Using the winepress for threshing wheat was an anomaly but it showed how serious the situation was for the people of Israel.
It was on one of those days that Gideon had an encounter with an Angel. When the Angel addressed him saying, 'The Lord is with you, mighty warrior." Gideon asked the question that must have been on the minds of the people around him, "if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, “Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?” But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian' (Judges 6:13). Does that sound familiar?
Notice that in response, the Angel did not answer Gideon's question. Rather, he told Gideon that he was to be part of the solution to the problem at hand. That he would be the one through whom Israel would be saved from the Midianites never entered Gideon's mind. How could he when he was the least of a family from the smallest clan in Manasseh which is also one one of the smallest tribes of Israel? Gideon went ahead to conquer the Midianties with just a handful of men and became of the greatest judges in Israel
From this encounter between Gideon and the Angel, I learnt two great lessons; God is always there even when it looks like He is not and secondly, when it looks like we are at the end of our rope, God has a way out and you may be part of the solution to the problem!
When I first heard the song, "Where Were You?" by Francesca Battistelli, I was intrigued by the first few stanzas;
Calling and calling, nobody home
It feels like I'm falling alone
Out on an Island, there's a voice on the beach
Watching your plane pass over me
How could you miss me?
With my hands in the air
I thought you were listening
I thought you'd be there!
"Hmm", I told myself, I need to know where this is going. So I turned the volume up a bit in time to hear the chorus;
Where were you?
When I had no one to turn to
Where were you?
When my worst fears were coming true
Where were you?
I thought you'd come to my rescue
Where were you?
This pretty much sounded like the modern day Gideon. I know there are many who may not be vocalising these questions but in their hearts they are asking, "Where are you in all of this Lord?"
I have recently gone through some challenging times this year and there were periods when I felt drained physically, spiritually and emotionally. At some point while experiencing this, I began to notice things that I would not have noticed easily when things were 'normal'. Something positive someone said, the sun breaking through the clouds after the rain, a song about the faithfulness of God, some difficult task at work that I had tried for hours to resolve and I somehow figured it out in 10 minutes after going on a prayer walk.
As I noticed these things and responded in thanksgiving, something began to shift. Although the situation had not changed but my attitude had. I realised that God was there with me all along and He was taking me through a process that would prepare me for what lay ahead just like He did with Gideon..
How did Francesca end her song? Thankfully it was not all questions. She had answers at the end;
Where were you?
When I had no one to turn to
You carried me through
On your shoulders, black and blue
I never knew
The footprints in the sand were you
One set of footprints, on a path I'd been on
Now I know they were yours all along
We don't always know the big picture but we can rely on the one who knows not only the big picture but the part that He is preparing us to play in that big picture. He has promised that He will never leave you nor will He abandon you (Hebrews 13:5) and I know that He keep His word.
Steve Popoola is the editor of Biblepraise Newsletter and the founder of the Biblepraise Fellowship Online at http://www.biblepraise.org. He lives in Kent, United Kingdom, where he works as an IT Professional. He currently serves as a Worship Leader as well as Home Group Leader in his local church and on occasion, speaks at invited events. He is the founder of the BiblepraiseFellowship Online Ministry and Moderator/Editor of the Biblepraise Newsletter. He can be reached through His email address, steve@biblepraise.org
