Here's Your Sign

Judges 6:17-18 NIV, "Gideon replied, 'If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. ¹⁸ Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.' ”

I love the story of Gideon.  I think because he was so quick to ask for a tangible sign that God was telling him what to do.  Every day we have to make choices.  Some of them are simple - what to wear, what to eat or when to wake up for work.  Some choices are far more difficult and frightening.  When do I leave where I am or take a new job or which school should I attend?  Any time we face change we want to be sure we are making the right choice.  We don't want to get down the road and realize maybe we chose poorly. 

I've made my share of poor choices and I've made some excellent ones and in the grand scheme of things they all worked out okay.  Through each choice I've either learned something about myself or someone else, got to experience some hardship or blessing or just realized there wasn't really a good or bad choice.  The one thing I have figured out more than anything else is that if I am truly seeking God's will then the choice I make is the right one.  He's been in, on or behind all those choices - shaping me through them to be more like Him. 

Gideon and I have much in common.  More than once I have done something similar to this request of Gideon to God.

³⁶ Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised— ³⁷ look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” ³⁸ And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water. Judges 6:36-38 NIV

I've asked God to fulfill some small thing as part of my search to reassure me that He was in that choice.  Sometimes its been as small as just show me a certain thing today and I will see your hand.  Sometimes its a verse or a song that just seems to powerfully speak to the situation I am trying to decide about.  Then there are the amazing times where I asked for something to happen that is way outside of logic
and it happened even quicker and better than I could have asked.  He hasn't always answered that way and sometimes I have to just keep moving forward without the fleece being answered.  But even then God has been there. 

³⁹ Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” ⁴⁰ That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew. Judges 6:39-40

Even after Gideon tested God again, God went on to use Gideon in a mighty way leaving no doubts to anyone watching that it was all God.  Sometimes when we question God, His answer is so obvious that there is no doubt that God is all over it.  I love when that happens.  The hard part is when we are listening and watching and we don't seem to get a sign of any kind.  Then we have to hold to the promises He gives and be wise in our choices trusting Him above all else.  Because that's when we will get to share with the world just how great our God is. 

So when you get a great "here's your sign" from God then be quick to thank Him and tuck it away so when you don't get one another time you can stand firm in Him knowing that even when we don't get a big sign He is still working it all out for us.