ALL GLORY BELONGS TO GOD
There is a Bible story about Gideon where God demonstrated that all glory belongs to Him, and indeed, by the end of the story, it was evident that it did.
This story is found in Judges 7, and this is how it goes:
“So Jerub-baal (that is, Gideon) and his army got up early and went as far as the spring of Harod. The armies of Midian were camped north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh. The LORD said to Gideon, ‘You have too many warriors with you. If I let all of you fight the Midianites, the Israelites will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength.’” (Judges 7:1–2 NLT)
The story continues with God instructing Gideon to reduce his army. First, 22,000 men were sent home, leaving 10,000. But even then, God said there were still too many! After another test, Gideon was left with just 300 men. THREE HUNDRED MEN! God does things in ways that sometimes just don't make sense. Logistically speaking, how can 300 men go to war against an army of countless soldiers? Like God, thank You for giving me 32,000 men to begin with, but why are we cutting the number down to just 300? I'm sure at some point Gideon must have thought, Yeah, we are actually screwed! But that's God! Think about it. If Gideon had gone to war with 32,000 men and won, the Israelites could easily have attributed their victory to their own strength. But God deliberately reduced the numbers so that when victory came, nobody could take the credit. Sometimes God will remove what makes you feel secure so that you can experience what only His power can accomplish. We may never fully understand why God does certain things the way He does. But when we surrender to Him and remain obedient to His instructions, even when they make no sense, those very acts of obedience can birth incredible testimonies.
I remember years ago when I first applied for my nursing job. I had two job opportunities. One was less than 30 minutes away from my house and paid more. The other was an hour and 30 minutes away, paid less, and required me to take one Overground train, two Underground trains and a bus just to get there. Now, tell me why I would choose the second option? When I compared the transport fares of £1.75 versus £10.70, the salary difference and the amount of time I would spend travelling to and from work, I genuinely questioned whether I had heard God correctly. And to make matters worse, during my very first week, there was a train strike! My already exhausting hour-and-a-half journey suddenly became TWO HOURS AND THIRTY MINUTES. At that point, I was really questioning God. Because how does any of this make sense? People called me crazy and silly for making that decision, and to be fair, looking at it logically, it really did seem crazy and silly. But God's ways are not our ways!
Within a short period, God began doing things for me through that very job that I cannot even begin to explain. And even now, I am still experiencing things that leave me completely speechless.
Things I could never have planned, calculated or orchestrated for myself. And that's why I can confidently say that ALL GLORY BELONGS TO GOD! I'm sharing this to remind and encourage someone today. Perhaps God has been telling you to do something, but you've been hesitant because it simply doesn't make sense.
Maybe He's telling you to leave one job for another. Maybe He's telling you to move somewhere unfamiliar, give something away, start something new or take a step that seems completely illogical. Whatever it may be, if you are certain it is God leading you, OBEY HIM! Don't become so consumed by how crazy it sounds or what people might say that you miss what God is trying to do. Because sometimes, in the moment, it genuinely will not make sense. And here's something else I've come to realise. When things happen in ways that seem natural or predictable, we can sometimes forget to acknowledge God's hand in them. We tell ourselves, Well, that's just how things work. That's what everyone else did. But sometimes God chooses a completely unexpected route so that when everything finally comes together, you cannot explain it away as coincidence, your own intelligence, your connections or your abilities. You can only say, THIS WAS GOD!
Imagine God prompting you to start buying furniture when you don't even have a house yet. It doesn't make sense! Or perhaps you've been praying for a child, and you feel God prompting you to begin preparing for that blessing. Again, it may not make sense! But when God truly gives an instruction, our responsibility is not to figure out every single detail of how He will accomplish it. Our responsibility is to trust Him and obey. Of course, this requires prayer, discernment and wisdom to be certain that what we're following is genuinely God's leading and not simply our own desires. But don't dismiss God's direction merely because it doesn't align with your understanding of how things should happen.
Remember Gideon. God took an army of 32,000 men and reduced it to just 300. Not because He lacked the power to give them victory with a larger army, but because He wanted Israel to understand that their victory was never dependent on their numbers. It was dependent on HIM. Sometimes what looks like a disadvantage in your eyes is the very situation through which God intends to reveal His glory. So trust Him. Obey Him. And allow Him to write a testimony that only He can take credit for. Because when God is done, the testimony will not be about how clever, capable or well-connected you were.
It will be about how faithful, powerful and wonderful HE is. And at the end of it all, ALL GLORY WILL BELONG TO GOD ALONE! Have a lovely rest of the week, and remain blessed.
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