Think back to your childhood for a moment with me. I know that this might be more difficult for some and easier for others but let’s all do this together. Think back to the good old days when you weren’t tied down by so much responsibility and your main goal for the day was to just have fun.(Boy I wish I could go back there.) Now think about what your parents were like during those years. Now I know for some people this might be difficult but please bear with me for a moment. During those years if your parents wanted any one thing from you what do you think it would be? The answer to that question can be many different things but I think that there is one answer that can be true of any parent. For my parents I think that the one thing that they wanted the most was for me to just do what they wanted me to do without ever being told to do it. Without them even hinting towards what they wanted me to do. For example, if the trash needed to be taken out I should just take it out before my parents even noticed that it was full. I think that most parents would agree that they would love that. So why does it seem like children are scared to obey their parents?
The same way it seems like children have problems obeying their parents in the simplest of ways, we have problems obeying God in the simplest of ways. We have all, at some point, done something that we knew was wrong before we did it. Why do you think that is? First of all it is the sin nature that is inside each and every one of us but I think that we have a fear of obedience. We are scared to fully commit to what God wants us to do because we are scared of receiving a difficult call from God. I know that I have thought this way before. I struggled for a whole year to listen to God’s calling to become a youth pastor because I was scared of the challenges that that position would bring. So I didn’t obey because I was scared of the obedience.
So why doesn’t everybody just trust and obey? I mean we know that there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. So why don’t we? We have let fear take complete control. We know that going all in for God and obeying His Word will bring some difficult challenges into our lives. We know that there will be people who hate us. What if we get called to move to another country? All this and more starts to fly through your head but I need you to take a moment and just breathe. Calm down and just simply trust and obey because there really is no other way and if you don’t want to take my word for it then let’s see what happens when Gideon applies the trust and obey model.
1a) God’s Request
So we start this story off with a request coming directly from God to Gideon but think for a moment just what this request entails. Gideon has to take his father’s bull, when their food supplies are being attacked, and tear town the altars to the false gods, gods that these people believed to be real. Sure we know that those gods are not real but the people who put up those altars believed them to be so they will view this as a direct attack against them. Not only must Gideon tear down these altars, he also has to build one to God and sacrifice his dads bull on this new altar. So if Gideon does this everyone in the town is going to be beyond mad. I don’t know about you but I would fear obedience at this point.
2a) Gideon’s Response
Gideon does follow through with what God asked him to do but he does it with fear. Instead of just trusting that God would keep him safe he does what God asked him to do in the middle of the night. Would you do any different if you were in Gideon’s shoes? I honestly think I would have done the same as Gideon because I would be too scared of what other people would say or do to me, which is another reason why we are scared of obedience. We let those around us scare us out of obeying God. So now that Gideon has done what God has asked what is going to happen to him?
3a) People’s Reaction
So what do the people do in response to seeing what Gideon has done through the night? The immediately discover that Gideon is the one responsible and they want to kill him. So at this point put yourself in Gideon’s shoes again. Are you happy that you obeyed God? Doubts are probably creeping in at this point in Gideon’s head. Fear has really set in and maybe he is even thinking that this is all because he obeyed God. We know how it ends though. Gideon’s dad steps in and saves Gideon’s life. So God didn’t allow Gideon to die because of obedience but now the people in his hometown look at him with a sense of disgust. Whenever they see him they call him Jerub-Baal which means to let Baal contend with him. In other words everytime they see Gideon they are saying that Baal will punish you for what you did.
So things get rough in Gideon’s life from this point on. He took a step of faith and obeyed and while he didn’t die people are now looking at him differently. In His weakest moment though God empowered him, which he would not have received if he had not obeyed. However despite what Gideon has just went through, despite have the Spirit of God empower him, he is still scared to obey. Let’s look at the last few verses and briefly unpack the rest of this story.
1b) Gideon’s Request
Gideon is asking for a sign that God is going to uphold His end of the bargain, which means that Gideon is scared. Gideon is still obeying God throughout this whole ordeal but he is scared each step of the way. It is okay to be scared which is why you need to trust and obey and not just obey. So Gideon is seeking proof that God is going to give them the victory even though God has told Gideon from the very beginning that He is sending him and why would God send Gideon and not give him the victory?
2b) God’s Response
God’s response could not have been more clear than that. Don’t you wish that you could get such a clear straightforward answer from God? We feel like if we were to get such a clear cut answer there would be no doubting inside of us and we would obey God without question. So what does Gideon do?
3b) Gideon’s Reaction
Gideon goes and asks for God to prove Himself a second time. Despite everything that Gideon has experienced up to this point he is still scared and wants to hear from God a second time. We all think that we would have accepted God’s first answer to Gideon but I don’t know about that. Think about the foe that Gideon is up against. This is war that we are talking about and their foe can not be counted. So I think that many of us, if not all of us, would be just like Gideon and give into the fear and ask again. Thankfully God is a gracious God and gave Gideon another yes.
I think that the take away from this long story is to simply trust and obey when God calls. It is not enough to just obey because as we saw with Gideon and as we see with our own lives obeying can be quite scary. If we all get honest with ourselves we are all scared of obeying God because we cannot look into the future to see the final outcome of us obeying. I’m sure that if Gideon could have seen the end result he would not have been so scared. So it is not a matter of overcoming your fear of obeying. It is a matter of trusting in God more than you fear obeying Him. There is nothing wrong with being scared of obeying God. You just need to trust in him first and know that where he is leading you is for your own good and then you can obey.
The more you trust in God the more likely you will be able to overcome your fear of following him wherever he leads. God asks us to do these scary things because He wants us to trust Him more and more each and every day. Obedience to God is all about trust in God. So what is it gonna take for you to trust Him more? Are you gonna let your fear over rule your trust?
There really is no other way to be happy in Jesus. Don’t seek to overcome your fear of obeying Him. Instead seek to increase your trust in Him and I promise you that you will begin to overcome fear after fear. If you keep walking down this path you will one day have so much trust that you can be quaking in your boots against an impossible task and you will just simply say, “I trust you God. Let’s do this!”
