Of inadequacies and victories.

I was struck by something I've never noticed before while reading the story of Gideon this week.  It made me giddily happy to realize that Gideon was the least qualified for the job that God had picked out for him.  In his words, "I beg your pardon Lord, but are you sure you have the right guy?  I'm from the weakest clan of all of Manasseh, and I'm the least in my family!"

He balked and doubted and questioned and second guessed God, and still didn't get in the way of God's greater purposes.

It made me happy to know that God uses people like that.  People who are fearful and doubting.  People who are under-qualified for the job at hand.

It made me happy because it made me realize that God can use me.

And then, in church today we read John 3:30.  "He must become greater; I must become less."

Nobody doubted for an instant that it was God going to battle against the vast army of the Midianites.  Gideon and his 300 men against more Midianites than could be counted.

Nobody counted it Gideon's victory.
He must increase, I must decrease.  More of Him, less of me.
 

"What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."
::Philippians 3::