You will face disappointment today. I will too. When these frustrations shove their way in as unwelcome guests, the promise of God’s presence with us often feels thin. That’s just what Gideon thought.

(Photo: Ophrah, where the Lord met with Gideon. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
Frequently, we respond to these disappointments like Gideon did while at Ophrah:
If the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? (Judg. 6:13).
We say this (or think it privately) because we have a firm opinion of what God being “with us” looks like.
No pain.
But such a view treats the Bible like a buffet lunch where we pick and choose what we want to swallow about God. When we do that, the plate we hold in our hands represents a god in our image—a freak unlike the God whose tells us His ways are not like ours.
Why would we want to worship a God we can control or understand? Where is the awe in that?
There’s a better way to think about it—and a better way to respond.
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