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      As a stay-at-home mom to four small children, I constantly feel unqualified and not nearly enough for them. I tend to look to the quickest, easiest place for comfort – Facebook. There I can find an abundance of posts, blogs, and memes reassuring me that I am enough for my kids and I can do this!

      There’s a lot of truth out there in mom-meme world and I’m not mocking it. I have seen good, solid Biblical truths presented in meme form. But often they make me cry and feel reassured for a moment, then I end up feeling discouraged because, deep down inside, I know that I’m not good enough. If I’m supposed to be, then my kids are in big trouble.

      Sweet Mama, all of those memes are lying to you. The truth is you are not enough. You can’t be. But God is and he is right there with you.  Isn’t that a relief? To know that the future of these precious little souls that you love with all your heart is not in your weak, sinful hands? That it’s in hands far more capable and loving than yours could ever be, even though you are giving it all of your heart every moment?

      Throughout the Bible, we repeatedly see God using unexpected people. People who are weak, unimportant, unsure, social outcasts, afraid – people that the world says are not enough to do great work. Like Gideon. I love Gideon. He’s just like me. When God approaches Gideon in Judges 6, he’s an unimportant guy in an unimportant tribe living in fear. The Israelites have been oppressed by the Midianites, who ride in after the crops are harvested and steal everything. So instead of threshing wheat with large stones or cattle in an empty field where the chaff can be blown away, Gideon is doing it in a confined, sunken winepress so that his enemies don’t know he has food.

What a threshing floor is supposed to look like….

Where Gideon was threshing his wheat.

So this is what Gideon is doing when the angel of the Lord appears and says, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior”.  This scene cracks me up! Can’t you picture it? Gideon is cowering down in this hole and he looks up – way up – and this ANGEL is there calling HIM a mighty warrior. Can’t you just see Gideon looking around, wondering who the angel is talking to? Thinking “Surely, he doesn’t mean me! Are there some big dudes around somewhere that I’m missing??” Of course, as soon as Gideon realizes the angel is talking to him, he questions him. “If the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us?” That’s when the Lord, instead of rolling his eyes and giving up on him, says ones of my favorite lines in the Bible:

“Go in the strength you have… Am I not sending you?”

      
Again, Gideon questioned him – “How can I save Israel?” And God says “I will be with you”.  Things happened with an altar and some fleeces, and Gideon ends up leading the Israelites into battle against the Midianites. Gideon is going into battle with very little strength – he is facing 135,000 Midianites with just 32,000 of his own men. Which is when God takes the strength Gideon has and makes it even less. God took Gideon’s army and cut it down to just 300 men. Gideon went into that battle with very little of his own strength, but all of God’s on his side.
 
Spoiler alert – the Israelites won. God was making it obvious that the strength to win this battle came from Him, not from man. You see, God uses our weaknesses to glorify him. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me”.  I love this because I have a LOT of weaknesses, which means I get a lot of chances to glorify God in my life. If I needed strength and willpower, I would not be glorifying God nearly as much as He deserves. But weaknesses? That I’ve got plenty of!
 
I will be with you. This promise is repeated so often in Scripture.  God said it previously to Moses in Exodus 3:12 and Jesus would later say it to His disciples in Matthew 28:20. How amazing is that?!?! The God who created the entire universe, who can make the wind and waves stop, who healed the crippled and raised the dead, who lived a sinless life yet submitted himself to death – that God is with me. Me! I’m not standing up to Pharaoh, leading an army into battle, or preaching His Word to the whole world, yet he sees me and is with me.  He’s with me when I’m sweeping the kitchen floor. Again. He’s with me when I’m trying to buckle a screaming toddler into a car seat in a crowded parking lot. He’s with me during the witching hour when all four children are melting down and need me (usually for an important reason like “He smiled at me!” or “I want more snacks!”) while I’m trying to fix dinner and I feel utterly alone and useless. 
 
Go in the strength you have.  On his own, Gideon’s strength was not much. But it didn’t need to be because Gideon would take what little he had, and God would add all the rest.  God does the same thing for me today. When I get up in the morning and say, “Morning, God. To recap, I was up with the baby twice last night, I had to change some sheets around 2 am, and the toddler wouldn’t stop kicking me in the face no matter how many times I shoved him on his daddy’s side of the bed, so I’m pretty tired.”, God replies,
I’m here, Sarah. I will multiply that 45 minutes of rest you got so that you can focus on serving me through these little ones”
 
He does the same for you my friend. He’s with you when you’re stuck in traffic or feel utterly alone or stubbed your toe or just lost a loved one. Bring Him the little strength you have and he will say to you,
“I’m here. I love you and I have all the strength you need. Rely on me instead of yourself. I will never leave you.”
 
 From the beginning of time, God knew us, loved us, and had a plan. He knew this would be hard. He knew we wouldn’t be enough for it, that we couldn’t just “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps”. He has always known that we would achieve our purpose in life – to glorify Him – by being weak and allowing Him to fight our battles. The glory is all His because the power is all His. He doesn’t send us out alone. All throughout Scripture, his promise is clear: He is with us always. So take that little bit of strength He has given you, give it back to Him, and let Him multiply it and use you to proclaim His love to the world.
 
 

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