“Gideon had too many. With God, less is more.”

Judges 7

Nowadays, most people value quality over quantity. This is especially true as it relates to relationships and how we go about our work. George MacDonald, Scottish author and minister said, “It is our best work that God wants, not the dregs of our exhaustion. I think He must prefer quality to quantity.” It’s easy to fall into the captivity of having more, doing more, and thinking that more is going to be the key to success. Sometimes, the value of the work lies in the sacrifice or the time taken to complete the work. In Gideon’s case, the value lay in his obedience.

As was usually the case, the Israelites were in trouble and found themselves dealing with the consequences of being disobedient to God through idol worship. An angel told Gideon that he was to be the one to lead the Israelites into battle and eventual victory over the enemy camps (Judges 6:16). God gave him specific instructions on how to pare down the number of those in his army because they would proudly- and erroneously- assume that the victory was due to their numbers. The Bible states that he went from 32,000 soldiers to only 300. It’s hard to fathom such such a depletion happening on purpose. Any military leader will tell you that having a large number of soldiers is important to winning a battle. Imagine the immense faith that Gideon had; also consider the immense freedom that his faith gave him.

Having faith is a type of freedom. When you believe in spite of what you see or what it looks like, that’s a release from being captive to logic. When God gave Gideon instructions on what to do to secure victory, he followed them to the letter. Moreover, when Gideon went down to the enemy camps, the Word says, “Now the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the sons of the east were lying [camped] in the valley, as countless as locusts; and their camels were without number, as numerous as the sand on the seashore” (Judges 7:12). It was impossible to enumerate the enemy’s resources; this alone would strike fear in an ordinary person. But Gideon obeyed and held fast to what the Lord had told him.

It’s easy to get caught up in the weeds of “more”: praying more, reading more, doing more. While there is certainly nothing wrong with doing more to gird ourselves spiritually, there also is something to be said about motive and being captive to works. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he said, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (2:8-9). This is precisely the challenge that God was saving Gideon from. When we endeavor to first place our faith in God and the finished work of the Cross, it frees us from the captivity of “doing.” We rest in our knowledge of Him and know that our faith is what captures His heart because we live out of that faith in obedience to Him.

Prayer for Release: Lord, thank You for loving me and for giving me a measure of faith whereby to serve You and be obedient to You. That faith allows me to be free from the binds of logic and doubt.