Today on this Good Friday, I’m sitting on my back porch (Happy Place) studying Judges to get ready for our lesson next week.

In this section of scripture you see Gideon’s army getting dwindled down by God from 32,000 to 300 to go fight the enemy.

Judges 7:2-7 Tree of Life Version

² But Adonai said to Gideon, “Too many are the people who are with you, for Me to give the Midianites into their hand. Otherwise Israel would glorify itself against Me saying, ‘My own hand has delivered me.’ ^[a] 3 So now, make proclamation in the ears of the people saying, ‘Whoever is afraid or anxious may turn back and leave from Mount Gilead.’” So 22,000 people turned back, while ten thousand remained.

⁴ But Adonai said to Gideon, “The people are still too many. Bring them down to the water and I will test them for you there. Now it will be that he of whom I say to you, ‘This will go with you,’ he will go with you, but anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one will not go with you,’ he will not go.” ⁵ So he brought the troops down to the water, and Adonai said to Gideon, “You are to set apart everyone who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, and everyone who bows down on his knees to drink.” ⁶ Now the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was 300 men, but all the rest of the people bowed down on their knees to drink water. ⁷ Then Adonai said to Gideon, “With the 300 men who lapped I will deliver you and give the Midianites into your hand. So let all the other people go, every man to his place.”

First of all, seeing 22,000 of your men leave the upcoming battle because they are “too scared” to fight had to be a gut punch to Gideon. I don’t know how much time passed before the Lord said, “the people are still too many”, but I imagine Gideon giving God the “Whatchu talkin’ bout Willis” look!!

I like to picture what the next scene, the test of the 10,000, might look like in today’s time. I picture Justin, our Simple Church pastor, taking everyone on Easter Sunday from the Brookshire Grocery Arena and walking them down to the Red River. He doesn’t know the test from God until they get there. He just knows to go to the river and his church membership is about to be cut. Once there, Justin tells everyone to drink (I hope the water for Gideon was better than the water here). God shows Justin what to look for with how the people drink. I wonder how this part is played out. Like, are the 300 who are chosen already grouped close together. Are they spread out amongst the 10,000 evenly? Was it hard to pick them out? How did he tell the people who got to stay and who was done? Then what is Justin to think about having only 300 people left to work with? What’s going to happen to the budget? This just all seems so backwards.

This is where I started to equate this with Good Friday and Jesus on the cross.

God’s way sometimes looks absolutely backwards.

The King of Kings has to…die?

How can an enemy be defeated with this?

Whatchu talkin’ bout Willis??

I see the disciples confused on this Good Friday and asking that question. They don’t understand even though Jesus told them what would happen. They don’t know “Sunday’s coming”! They sit with this question for a few days.

We know what it’s like to be in this spot. This place in our lives where you have no idea what God is doing or why He is doing it. It all looks so backwards and hard and… impossible.

But then God.

I learned last week in another Bible study that Jesus was “amazed” at two things:

1. Faith
2. Lack of faith

During this seemingly backwards, hard, impossible time in your life, which will you choose?

For me, I want to choose faith. But like the boy’s father in Mark 9:24 I cry out “…Help my unbelief!”