Gideon’s trumpet
This morning, the lectionary reading for Morning Prayer was from Judges 6 – the familiar story of Gideon. As I was reading it for my time of personal devotion, I could not but think of how there might be parallels for my own life – at least, that’s what I prayed and wished.
In the passage, the angel of Jehovah appears to Gideon, who was busy threshing wheat. He said to Gideon, “The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!… Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the Midianites.” However, Gideon’s own feelings about himself are in stark contrast to the angel’s assessment. “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
You see, I am weak and small, like Gideon. I suppose we all feel this way most of the time. And perhaps the larger a person’s vision, the smaller he feels. Certainly Gideon’s task seemed overwhelming to him. And, like Gideon, the multitude of tasks before me seems overwhelming. And interestingly enough, the time frame of seven years is another parallel to my own life. Jehovah had delivered the Israelites into the hands of the Midianites for seven years. I will have been pastoring here in Lafayette for seven years, come August. I wonder if Gideon felt the fatigue of seemingly fruitless labor like I do. Gideon was hiding away in the wine press to thresh the wheat lest the Midianites steal their food. Though I can’t say that I’ve been as faithful in the labor of “husbandry” as Gideon appears to have been, I, too, feel stuck in the wine press, circumscribed by the constrictions of the work space and the smallness of my productivity.
I keep going back to that number “seven.” Seven, we know, is the Sabbath number. It is the number before the resurrection number – eight. I’ve been talking with a friend about the significance of this number. It seems that God often works consistently within numeric frameworks as He works out our redemption. For example, the seventh year of marriage often seems to be a hard year for couples. But, if they persevere, the eighth is often a time of greater fruitfulness and joy. I am hoping this will be true in my ministry here.
At the right time, the Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon; then he blew the trumpet, and his kinsmen gathered behind him. I want one of those trumpets! Ever since I’ve arrived, I’ve pleaded with God that He would send me helpers – a wife, godly friends, an associate pastor, a secretary, you name it. Yet here I remain, small and alone. However, God has recently been building our forces. We have a few men, now, who have a heart for the labor. They’ve bought into the vision. All they need is a leader. But I still don’t have one of those trumpets. And the end of the seventh year is approaching. I still want the trumpet because there are more men that I want to gather. I discern that we need more gifts added to the mix. I’m not asking for a big army, just the right army – just a few more men who can fill out the necessary gifts-set and who have the vision.
I went to a conference a couple of years ago in Moscow. Steve Wilkins lectured on John Witherspoon’s influence upon his students at Princeton – the same men who founded our country. Witherspoon instructed them that they “must conspire together.” I came away more fully convinced than ever that no great or lasting work within human history was ever accomplished by a single individual. Sure, there have always been great men, and we seem to remember them singularly. But even Jesus Himself gathered twelve with whom He shared the vision. They were His army of friends. They conspired to take over the world. And no other mission has endured like unto His. I also think of the Westminster Assembly and the seven Scottish divines who would ride down to the Assembly together, conspiring on how they could exercise the most influence on the Assembly, planning who would be on what committee, who would represent what view on the Assembly floor, how they would arrange their seating in order to spread out and not be suspected of being in collusion together. They were shrewd as serpents, innocent as doves. And they influenced a whole bunch of Anglicans and Independents to formulate a Presbyterian document.
Since that conference I attended, I have asked some of my dearest friends – men who I knew had my vision, men who have special gifts that I don’t have, men with whom I would love to live, work, and die alongside – to come to Lafayette and join with me in this labor. But I don’t have that trumpet. And I think, “Maybe the timing is not right. The eighth year is coming.”
God send me warrior-friends; the kinsmen of my heart. You know the ones I mean… and the ones I can’t yet imagine.