When God Calls The Unimaginable

During my senior year of high school, my favorite class was International Relations. The course was all about current events and politics and “Newsweek” magazine was our textbook. One assignment we were given was to research a topic and present the information before the class. It was like an oral term paper. I can’t remember my topic but I can remember the trauma of standing before the class because all I could do was laugh. And laugh. And laugh. It was uncontrollable laughter. The reaction to the nervousness I felt was to laugh. Thankfully, the teacher had mercy on me and allowed me to write out my research in a paper. 

If someone had told me that day in high school, especially after that experience, I would one day speak before an audience, I really would have laughed! My teacher would have considered it unimaginable.  But God has a way of doing the unimaginable with the most unlikely of people. 

In Judges 6, God called a man named Gideon to fight against the enemy of His people. The funny thing is, he called Gideon “mighty hero” while he was hiding from the enemy. How could cowardly Gideon be a mighty hero? Gideon certainly didn’t believe he was mighty or a hero. In fact, when God called him, Gideon responded that he was the “least in his family”, meaning he was the youngest, the weakest, or the smallest. It was unimaginable that Gideon would conquer the enemy. But in Judges 7, that’s exactly what he did. 

While Gideon’s belief of himself was likely accurate, what he didn’t take into account was the One calling him “mighty hero”. And that One was God. When God called Gideon, he promised Gideon that He was sending him and He would be with him. Gideon didn’t have to fight the enemy in his own strength because when God calls us to do something, He equips us to do it. And where God sends, He goes. Through the Holy Spirit, His power is available to us. 

Several years ago, God called me to a teaching and speaking ministry. The memory of standing and laughing before the class years before came into full view. But true to His Word, God has equipped me and is with me each time He sends me out.

What is God calling you to do? Are you the shy one, the weak one, the small one? Do you have a past? Do you think you aren’t smart enough or qualified enough? Is it unimaginable that you would be able to accomplish the task He’s given you? You’re right. On your own, it is. But God is able to take the most unlikely people and make them into “mighty heroes” for Him. And because of who God is, we can be all He calls us to be. 

2019 Robin R King

Judges 6:11-13 (NLT)

“Then the angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites.  The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!”