Gideon's Dry Fleece

"Your doubts will evaporate like dew when the waiting is over."

Luci Shaw, Water My Soul.

Call him a reluctant warrior. For seven years, God was silent as the marauding Midianites raided their farms at harvest time.  So when Yahweh’s messenger called Gideon a ‘mighty man of valor’ and told him that God was with him, the man was a tad skeptical. Waiting can do that to you.

It seemed to Gideon that God was more absent than active, more a god of legends than a God of the real world where thieves plundered crops with impunity. When the angel told Gideon to ‘gird up his strength’ and deliver Israel, he asked for a sign and received  dramatic evidence of God's power. But it was not enough.

Even with surges of heroic courage and moral outrage at the injustice he and his neighbors were suffering, Gideon hesitated to act. Could God please re-assure him?

He placed a lambs-wool fleece on his threshing floor and asked God to drench it with dew in the morning while the ground around it remained dry. Presumably he hoped a dew-free night would release him from any obligation to mount a risky campaign. But the morning light found the ground bone-dry and the fleece soaking wet, just as Gideon had asked.

It was a miracle – a sign! But the problem with proof-by-coincidence is that you never know if you have proof or a coincidence. So Gideon tried it again the next day, reversing the terms – a dry fleece, please, on dew-laden ground – which would be an even more extraordinary occurrence if it occurred.

Wobbly faith seeks for signs just as Jesus said a perverse generation does. But once again God granted Gideon’s request, proving that God does suffer fools gladly – or at least cuts them a fair bit of slack!

Just as dew reveals the presence of invisible moisture in the air, so Gideon’s dew-drenched fleece was a tangible sign of God’s invisible presence and power. It heralded a call to action which Gideon knew he must answer.

In Gideon’s fleece we see the signs of a vacillating man, hardly the marks of the hero God called him to be, but God never rebuked Gideon for his hesitancy and made a lion out of him. What patience and extravagance God shows!

Gideon’s doubt evaporated like dew in the morning sun. The waiting was over. He mobilize his troops and drove the foe from the land.

God, my faith wavers like Gideon's
I, too, am doubtful of your power,
I crave irrefutable signs
Demanding divination

Just as You did with Gideon,
Clothe me with your Spirit,
Drench me with passion
Enlarge my faith.
Amen