Other people see our flaws and failings, but God sees our possibilities through His transforming presence. When God looks at us, He does not see us for what we are, but for what we can become through His work in our lives. He takes weak, insignificant people and transforms them by His presence. He knows our weaknesses, failures, discouragements, doubts and inadequacies and comes to us with the promises of His power that will transform our inadequacy into His strength.
When Gideon expresses his concern - the Lord responds: Go in the strength you have. This God given strength accompanies both God's command and His promise. God is calling Gideon to go forward on the basis of the strength that He always supplies for His commission. If we look to our own strength, we will always end up in defeat, or perhaps worse, in self-deceiving arrogance. God's answer is not positive thinking, but the promise of His presence, provision and power. When the Lord commission us, He promises to be with us always.
Gideon is also filled with a deep sense of personal inadequacy and insignificance. How can I do that? he asks. The job's too big for me. I have no qualifications and I do not have any support. This is exactly where God begins with a person. Time and time again, we see the Lord cutting away a person's self-confidence to bring him to the place where he admits that he is totally inadequate to do or to be what God desires. Then, He confronts the person with the truth of His total adequacy: I will be with you.
Inadequate in ourselves, we are overwhelmingly adequate through our God.
God has committed Himself to be with you and to pour His strength into the places of your weakness.
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