Can God Really Use Me?

When we first meet Gideon in the Book of Judges, he was insecure.

He felt worthless, like a complete nobody.

He even described himself as the absolute least in his entire family.

And I don't mean just in his immediate family, I mean, like, all of his family.

But God didn't see him that way.

Now, to give you a little bit of a backstory to what's going on, the Israelites were held captive in Egypt.

They cried out, and God delivered them and helped them escape their captivity.

You might remember Moses and Pharaoh and the parting of the Red Sea.

When God led them out of Egypt, He showed them and told them that He was their God, and He specifically told them not to worship the false gods of the Amorites, which is where the Israelites were living at the time.

But like the Israelites always did, they chose not to listen to God.

Have you ever been there? God put it on your heart to talk to someone, or you know you should have shared Jesus with someone, but you didn't obey? Or maybe you knew that you shouldn't be hanging out with this one friend because they were trouble, and it led you to do things that you normally wouldn't do.

We've all been there.

This is where the Israelites were.

They didn't obey God and turned and began to worship the false gods of the Amorites, probably because everyone was doing it.

It was normal.

It was part of their culture, right? Well, now the Israelites were in trouble again.

And ladies, just a side note, when you do things God's way, know that they will always end up blessed, but when we choose to do things our own way, that's when they end up in a mess, and that is exactly where the Israelites were, in a mess.

Judges chapter 6 verses 1 through 6 tells us that for seven years the Midianites overpowered Israel, so much so that the Israelites had to run into the mountains and hide in caves for that whole seven years.

And any time the Israelites started to get ahead, any time they planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites would come up against them and eat all their produce.

They would take all of their animals, so Israel had nothing to eat.

They had nothing for themselves.

But because Israel had turned away from God and tried to do things their own way, they were now at the lowest of lows.

They had nowhere to go except to run back to God.

Now, praise God, He is loving, compassionate, and merciful.

When we mess up, know that, just like with the Israelites, we can always run back to God.