Looking for a Miracle

Judges Weekend!


Judges 6:36-38

Then Gideon said to God, “In order to see whether you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said, I am going to lay a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said.” And it was so. When he rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water.

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Im looking for someone to change my life.
Im looking for a miracle in my life.

"Question" written by Justin Hayward, recorded by The Moody Blues from "A Question of Balance"

The angel said "the Lord is with you" and called Gideon "mighty warrior." This was when Gideon looked over his shoulder to make sure there wasn't some guy with the same name standing behind him. The angel surely had this wrong, wrong as wrong can be.

Earlier in this sixth chapter of Judges, Gideon meets the angel. Not too sure about the whole thing, Gideon says, "If now I have found favor with you, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me." Gideon prepares the angel a fine meal which the Angel tells him to put on a stone. From the stone a great fire rages and consumes the meal. Gideon is assured and at the same time frightened. He has seen the angel face to face and fears he will die. The angel says, no--you'll live. A great miracle, not just that Gideon has seen the angel, the angel has given Gideon a glimpse of a shadow of the future.

But this isn't enough. When later in the chapter God gives Gideon his vocation, Gideon insists on this sign from God. Gideon asks for what we call "the sign of the fleece." He puts a wool fleece on a threshing floor. If the fleece is wet in the morning and the floor is dry, it's a miracle, the sign he seeks, and Gideon promises to do as the Lord requires.

As the reading says, "And it was so." The threshing floor must have been dry and the fleece was surely wet, wet enough to fill a bowl with fresh water.

We look for signs, no doubt about it. God gives us signs too. Sometimes they are how we ask God answer. Sometimes they are far more subtle.