Too Much of Anything Is Too Much.

"The LORD said to Gideon, 'You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me...'"  -Judges 7:2, NIV

For those of you not familiar with this passage, God goes on to tell Gideon to cut down the number of his army, drastically!  Gideon ends up reducing the number of soldiers in his command from 32,000 to only 300.  The Bible does not give an exact number for the Midianites, but the author states that they were so numerous that their camp which covered a valley so thick that they appeared to be swarming as locusts.  Now this strategy of troop reduction before battle would probably baffle most modern-day military officers, but God Himself said that He: "chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise," and, "the weak things of the world to shame the strong" (1 Cor. 1:27).  To ruin the story if you haven't read it, Gideon and his 300 go on and massacre the entire Midian army; take that, Gerard Butler (a reference to the movie 300).

Often times I find myself getting jealous of others and wondering why no matter what I try, everything always seems to work out better for other people.  Why do they have the better vehicle, video game system, guitar/equipment, or better and more stable job?  I've been going through one of these phases the last couple days as both cars Sarah and I own need oil changes, lights replaced, and other maintenance and while I am in the process of searching for a new job.

When people get complacent and comfortable, they tend to forget God.  There's a cliche about how there are no atheists on an airplane that is going down.  But what about the people who continually acknowledge God and stick beside Him no matter what?  Gideon was like that and God said He needed to get rid of some of his men so that God could do awesome things.  Maybe God does this kind of stuff to people sometimes because we get used to His blessings and He needs to set the stage for us to be blessed even more.  Don't misunderstand me because the Bible never says anything about following Jesus equalling blessings.  What I'm saying is: how will we really know what is best if God doesn't help us get past being fixated on the better? 

Or at least that's my thoughts on the matter for now.