The Army God Made Smaller

Gideon had an army. Thirty-two thousand men, all of them ready, all of them his. And across the valley waited the Midianites, so many that no one could count them, spread over the fields like sand, like grasshoppers. When Gideon looked at them, his stomach went tight and cold. Not long before, he had been hiding in a winepress, threshing wheat in the dark, when God called him a mighty warrior. Now the mighty warrior felt small all over again.

But God looked at Gideon's thirty-two thousand men and said, "There are too many."

Too many?

God knew something about people's hearts. He knew that if they won with a big, strong army, they would puff out their chests and say, "Look what we did. We saved ourselves." And it would not be true. God was the one who would save them, and he wanted them to know it, so they would never forget who loved them.

So God made the army smaller.

"Anyone who is afraid may go home," God said. And twenty-two thousand men turned and walked away. Gideon watched them go. Now he had only ten thousand.

But God said, "Still too many."

He brought them down to the water to drink, and when it was over, only three hundred men were left. Three hundred, against an army like the sand of the sea.

Can you imagine standing there? You already felt like you did not have enough, and God kept taking away, smaller and smaller, until what was left in your hands was almost nothing at all.

That is when God leaned close and said the kindest words: "With these three hundred, I will save you."

There would be no clash of swords, no contest of strength. That night the three hundred crept down in the dark, each one holding a trumpet and a clay jar with a little torch hidden inside. All at once they smashed the jars and blew the trumpets, and the whole hillside blazed with light, and the enemy camp woke in a panic and ran.

Three hundred men, and not one of them could say, "I did this." There were far too few of them to brag. Everyone could see plainly that God had saved them. It was a gift.

God was teaching his children something, way back then, before they even knew to listen for it. He was showing them how he would save. Not with the strong and the many, but with the small, with what looks like almost nothing at all. One day God would send a Rescuer, and that Rescuer would not come with armies. He would come gentle. He would let himself be made small, small enough to be lifted up on a cross, so that no one could ever stand up and say, "I saved myself." No one needs to, because the saving was always meant to be a gift, placed into open, empty hands.

That night on the hillside, Gideon stood among his three hundred, broken jars at their feet and torches still burning, watching the enemy run into the dark. The man who once hid in a winepress had won a battle without swinging a sword. God's gift had done it all.