When Grace Becomes Grasping
For Meditation (Corey Widmer)
The well-known story of Gideon lies at the center of the book of Judges. In more ways than one, these three chapters represent the spiritual center of the narrative. Gideon’s story begins with the familiar pattern we have already seen: God’s people are oppressed, they cry out, and God graciously raises up a deliverer. But by the end of Gideon’s story, something has changed. The familiar cycle has begun to unravel, and Israel is descending toward the chaos and spiritual disaster that will dominate the chapters to come.
The first half of Gideon’s story is about receiving. When the angel commissions him to lead God’s people out of oppression, Gideon protests, “My clan is the weakest…and I am the least in my family” (6:15). Yet, as we have already seen in Judges, this is precisely how God chooses to work! By choosing a weak and fearful man, and then whittling Gideon’s army down to a tiny band of soldiers, God demonstrates that his “power is made perfect in weakness.” Gideon’s story becomes a parable of grace: God meets us in our weakness and does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Slowly, Gideon learns to trust that God is sufficient for him.
But the second half of Gideon’s story is about grasping. Success begins to change him. Increasingly, Gideon seems driven by personal glory, vengeance, and the desire to secure what God has already given him. The man who once tore down his father’s idol eventually creates an idol of his own, leading Israel back into the faithlessness from which God had delivered them. Gideon receives the gift of God’s grace, but gradually begins to grasp it as something that belongs to him.
Gideon’s story presents us with two ways to live: a life of receiving and a life of grasping. It invites us to ask the question at the heart of this book: Who are we becoming? Can we receive our lives as gifts, trusting that God is enough for us even in our weakness? Or do we forget that everything we have is given and begin grasping for security, recognition, control, and success? One way leads to destruction , the other leads to life.
Questions for Discussion + Reflection
God meets Gideon in a place of great weakness and fear. Where in your life do you need God to find you in your weakness? What might it take for you to be more open with God and others about your places of need?
If you have time, read through the whole Gideon story (Judges 6-8). Where do you notice the shift from "receiving" to "grasping" in Gideon's story? What do you notice about this change? How would you describe what you see happen to Gideon?
In some ways, Gideon's success is the beginning of his downfall. How does success tempt us to forget grace?
What are you most tempted to grasp for - control, safety, recognition, success, approval, power? What might it look like to relinquish some of those desires to God?
How does Jesus embody a life of receiving rather than grasping? What habits or practices might help us become people who live in that same pattern?
Judges 6 :11–16; 7:2–7; 8:22–27
The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
“Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”
“Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”
The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.”
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The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’ Now announce to the army, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’” So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.
But the Lord said to Gideon, “There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will thin them out for you there. If I say, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go; but if I say, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.”
So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the Lord told him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues as a dog laps from those who kneel down to drink.” Three hundred of them drank from cupped hands, lapping like dogs. All the rest got down on their knees to drink.
The Lord said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the others go home.”
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The Israelites said to Gideon, “Rule over us—you, your son and your grandson—because you have saved us from the hand of Midian.”
But Gideon told them, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The Lord will rule over you.” And he said, “I do have one request, that each of you give me an earring from your share of the plunder.” (It was the custom of the Ishmaelites to wear gold earrings.)
They answered, “We’ll be glad to give them.” So they spread out a garment, and each of them threw a ring from his plunder onto it. The weight of the gold rings he asked for came to seventeen hundred shekels, not counting the ornaments, the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian or the chains that were on their camels’ necks. Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town. All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.