(Judges 7:13–15)
In Judges chapter 7, Gideon was getting ready to fight a battle. And he only had 300 men with him. The enemy had thousands. If you were picking sides, you wouldn’t have chosen Gideon. It looked like a joke.
But God told him to go down to the enemy camp and listen. So Gideon sneaks down with his servant and hides outside one of the tents. And he hears two Midianite soldiers talking. One of them had a dream.
He said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell…” (Judges 7:13)
A cake of barley bread? That’s like saying a dry little biscuit rolled down a hill and crushed a tent. That’s not scary.
But the other soldier took it seriously. He said, “This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon…” (v. 14)
Now here’s where it gets good.
Barley was the cheap stuff. Poor people ate barley. It wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t strong. It was the food of the weak.
So why did God give that dream? Because that’s what Gideon was. Poor. Weak. Outnumbered. But when God is in it, weakness becomes strength.
It wasn’t about how strong Gideon was. It was about who was behind him.
So here comes Gideon. He’s weak. He’s small. But he’s surrendered. And when God rolls him into the enemy camp, he wins!
That’s the lesson right there:
God doesn’t need you to be strong. He needs you to be surrendered.
You might feel weak, but in God’s hand, you’re a battering ram.
