I met Gideon last week and I felt in love on the first sentence. The story of Gideon takes place approximately 1100 years before Christ. The Israelites are under the oppression of the Midianites, a nomadic tribe who is constantly attacking Israel. Gideon is an Israelite and when we meet him, he is at a wine press, below ground, hiding from the Midianites. An angel of the Lord appears to him and greets him in a very strange way: "The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor." (Judges 6:12) The greeting is strange because first of all, the young man is under oppression and fighting for survival, so the Lord doesn't seem to be with him. And second, Gideon is hiding so he doesn't seem to be a very courageous man.
Gideon's response to the angel is a complaint: "Pray, sir, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this befallen us? And where are all his wonderful deeds which our fathers recounted to us, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has cast us off, and given us into the hand of Midian." (Judges 6:13)
Oh, how I can relate to Gideon. I complain to the Lord all the time. I want things my way and I don't trust that the Lord's way is better. I want God to answer my prayers NOW and I get impatient when He makes me wait. And that is why I felt in love with Gideon, because he complained to the Lord. He was not embarrassed to tell the angel exactly how he felt. Many times we feel exactly the same way. We feel that God has cast us off. He has turned His back on us. Bad things keep happening. Our health or the health of a loved one is frail, we have lost a family member, someone that we considered a good friend has betrayed us, we are having some financial difficulties or we are having some serious issues with our kids. Where is God in all this? Why has He abandoned me?
Gideon felt the same way but in reality, it was not God the one that had turned His back on Israel but Israel the one that had abandoned God. "The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord." (Judges 6:1). It is the same today in 2015 as it was 3,000 years ago. When things are going well, we feel that we don't need God and we turn our backs on Him. We forget to praise Him, we forget to visit Him in the Blessed Sacrament and sometimes we don't even have time to go to mass. But when things get rough, then we remember God and we accuse Him of abandoning us.
But God is merciful and He hears our cry for help. "The Lord is with you," even if you can't see him or feel him. He has a plan for you. Just be patient. As you begin this Lenten journey, be open to what the Lord has in store for you.
If you want to read the full story of Gideon, you can find it in Judges chapters 6 to 8. Here's the link:
The Story of Gideon
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