Judges 6:11-14 Now the Angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!” Gideon said to Him, “O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.” Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?”
Biblical Hebrew uses a grammatical form called “s’michut”. This form joins two words together to form a single word form. We have this in English: for example, a door and a knob are two nouns, which are used to form the word “doorknob”, a compound noun. This form of joining nouns is found in Judges 6:12. The expression, “Angel of the Lord” is rendered, “angel-YHVH”; (Yud-Hay-Vav-Hay); in modern English — “angel-Yehovah”. Then, suddenly, the narrative changes from “angel-Yehovah” to simply, “Yehovah”. Here we see another appearance of YHVH in human form in the Old Testament. The God-Man, Yeshua in a “pre-incarnate” appearance.
When Gideon was called to fight the Midianites, he felt inadequate, unequipped and the weakest among his brethren — but the Lord called him “you mighty man of valor”! Isn’t it always interesting how God calls the weak things of this world to confound the natural wisdom of the world [1 Cor 1:18-21]? And sometimes He sees right through their perception of themselves, and calls them “mighty” !
Gideon, in the midst of overwhelming circumstances, felt as many feel today: weak, abandoned by God, wondering, “Where are you LORD?” But when the Lord suddenly shows up to call us to be part of His solution, what will we say? What will we do? Because He knows who we are deep inside, and He knows how to empower the weak to perform His works for His glory.
If you find yourself asking, “Where are you LORD?”, you might want to prepare yourself to be the answer to the problem. Because He might just “show up” and give you an “impossible” commission, then equip you with the strategy for victory. Even you, alone, with the LORD, are an army that no enemy wants to face!
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When the Lord gave Jonah a second chance, He didn’t change His mind about the prophet’s destination. He didn’t lighten the load or change the burden Jonah was destined to carry. There was no negotiation with Jonah where the Lord expressed understanding about his reluctance to go to Nineveh. God didn’t concede to send him to Tarshish just because he’d been heading in that direction anyway. Jonah’s disobedience and repentance produced a clear and simple result…
A “second time.” Jonah’s repentance gave him a second chance to obey the Lord and to fulfill his ministry. And he did it successfully. The apostle Paul tells us that “the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable” [Romans 11:29]. Jonah’s disobedience did not take away his calling as a prophet. The discipline of the Lord was fruitful in his life. But compare King Saul. He also got a second chance after failing to wait for Samuel [1 Samuel 13] and he disobeyed again, and lost his kingship [1 Samuel 15]. But even that took many years to transpire after David was anointed.