Victory

I'm currently reading through the book of Judges and just recently finished the story of Gideon. There are a lot of real life examples for us in his history, but one in particular speaks to our need to depend on God to find success.

Gideon has been charged with engaging the Midianite enemy force in battle. The Israelites are ridiculously outnumbered, but God goes through a process of whittling down their fighting force from 30,000 to 300. It's not the best military strategy I've ever heard of, but God doesn't exactly follow textbook principles anyay. God's motivation (as He shared with Gideon) was for the victory to be credited to Him and not to the might of people. It's not because God is narcissistic, but that in His perfect nature and awesome power there is no one else who is worthy of such honor. Naturally, God's people overcome these obscene odds and rout their enemy on the way to monumental victory.

Too often we assume that our successes are only based on our hard work and abilities. I don't discount the need to leverage what we have been blessed with, but when we only credit ourselves with our victories we are ignoring the God who orchestrates it all. Honoring Him is the prudent way to remain humble and focused on following His intent for our lives.