Time travel with me for a moment; let’s go back 3000 years or so. You are an ancient world general in a land with no king. Your people are being oppressed on all sides and are afraid to do things in public for fear of persecution and thievery. You are about to go to war with the country oppressing you. You have a good sized army, close to 32,000 strong fighting men; you start planning out battle strategies with some of your contemporaries, asking advice, playing out different scenarios. You give the order to gather the troupes together so you can give them a rousing speech before the battle. As you stand in front of your hoard of warriors you open your mouth and are horrified at what comes out:
“Anyone too scared to fight in this battle may leave now and go home to your families!”
Confusion sets in over your army as they pause to take in what you’ve just said. You open your mouth to speak again, and are once again shocked at the words you speak:
“The LORD has told me that we are to win this battle by his strength alone! So anyone who is afraid to fight may leave now!”
Slowly, and with much hesitation, men start walking down the path to the bottom of the mountain towards their homes. Only a few go at first, but soon more. A trickle becomes a flow, and a flow becomes a current and suddenly 22,000 of your 32,000 men are timidly walking down the mountain towards their home, safe and secure. Your heart sinks as you do the math in your head.
“32,000 – 22,000 = …10,000… well… we can still make a dent in them… maybe scare them away from us for a while…”
It’s almost time for the fight, you lead your men to a stream and tell them to drink so that they can be properly hydrated before the battle. Your heart sinks again as you hear that old familiar voice inside your head. It’s him again…
“You still have too many warriors.” He says, “If you go into battle with this many people your nation will think it liberated itself. I am going to liberate you. They need to know that. Send some more home.”
You try and reason with him, but it’s pointless. It always is. You look out at the way your men are drinking. Some are cupping the water into their hands and then using their tongues to drink like they were dogs, but most are just kneeling with their mouths directly in the stream. Reluctantly you open your mouth to speak.
“Everyone who is kneeling down and drinking with their mouths can go home!”
Confusion again, but in times of battle one must always listen to their commanding officer. Slowly the men stand up and head down the same mountain path that so many of their friends walked earlier that day. Math time again. This time it’s easy, a simple head count will do. After you and your commanders spend a few minutes counting and adding you choke out a rough figure of those who are left.
“…300… 300 men to fight off all of the Midianites… we’re dead…”
It seems crazy. It was crazy. This was the situation a guy named Gideon found himself in, in Judges Chapters 6 and 7. He was afraid; who wouldn’t be? But God required that Gideon trust him. God needed the Israelites to know that he can do much with little.
God does stuff like this throughout the Bible; particularly when Jesus was in the picture (I mean… Jesus is still in the picture… just in a different way). In Mark chapter 6 Jesus feeds 5000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. That’s 1000 people per loaf and 2,500 people per fish. Now either they were enormous loaves and the biggest fish you’ve ever seen, or that is a clear example of God doing much with little. The bible says everyone ate until they were full and afterwards 12 baskets of food were collected from the scraps.
Later on in Mark chapter 8 Jesus feed 4000 people in a similar way. That time there were 7 baskets left over. Numbers are always tricky in the bible; sometimes they mean something, and sometimes they don’t. In this case I think they do. You see, there were 12 tribes of Israel, so when Jesus did a miracle with 12 baskets of food left over I think it was God’s way of saying that he has the power to take care of all 12 tribes. In the second miracle 7 baskets were left; in the Jewish tradition 7 is the number of wholeness. I think it was God’s way of saying that he has the power to care for the whole world.
The Bible is full of examples of how God can do a lot with a little, and how all we need to do is trust him. This week we’re challenging our students (and ourselves!) to realize where in our lives God is trying to do much in. Because the truth is all we need to do is let him.
Jb