Thoughts on Fleecing God

CONSECRATE Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  HEAR Judges 6:36–40 (NIV) Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised—look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water. Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew. CONSIDER Everyone wants to know if this is a prescriptive text or a descriptive text. In other words, does it instruct us on how to relate to God in our attempts to discern his will, or does it merely describe how Gideon related to God in this instance? I believe the text is far more descriptive than prescriptive. Why? If there is one thing we need to remember about Gideon, it is where God found him: threshing wheat in a winepress and saying things like, “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” (Judg. 6:13). Gideon was far from a paragon of faith. He was an average farmer trying to scratch out a living in a desperate situation. Gideon was the equivalent of a B-team benchwarmer on the junior high football team who was not only skipping high school and college but being drafted straight into the NFL. It was a bit beyond absurd. He wasn’t ready for the assignment, and his responses tell the story. He wanted to be sure. He needed confirmation. He was desperate for a sign, and another sign, and another sign. And God was so good to give him what he needed. It was a combination of an extraordinary set of circumstances and a God who meets us and works with us as he finds us. Honestly, though, from my reading of Scripture, I don’t think “fleecing” (or putting out a fleece) is the preferred method for discerning the heart and mind of the God of heaven and earth. So what does God want from us? In a word: maturity. Our Father wants us to grow up into the deep likeness of his Son, Jesus, anchored in his Word, animated by his Spirit, abiding in his presence, attached to his friends, and  activated in his kingdom. I like how Paul puts it in Romans 12:1: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” Then he teaches us how to discern the will of God: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Rom. 12:2). Here’s the encouragement: to know the will of God, don’t put out a fleece. Surrender your life to Jesus and become the gloriously incredible person you were put on earth to be. Stop copying the world around you. Be consecrated to the God who would indwell you. One more bit. It’s good to see Gideon out of the winepress and back out on the threshing floor today, even with his fleece. He’s not threshing wheat there yet, but he’s making moves. This pleases God . . . every single time. What move will you make today? Let’s encourage one another to stop asking God to show us signs of his readiness and start showing God signs of our readiness. That’s what really thrills God’s heart. PRAY Father, we want maturity. We want to grow up into Christ. We know you aren’t asking us to try harder but rather to simply give ourselves to you completely and wholeheartedly. We want to live our lives in you. We want to be built up in you. We want to be strengthened in you. We want to be who you saw when you created us. Thank you for meeting us where we are and working with what we have. Come, Holy Spirit, and awaken our spirits to the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. In Jesus’s name we pray, amen.