Judges 7:2-7 “And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me.³ Now therefore go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from mount Gilead. And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand; and there remained ten thousand.⁴ And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people are yet too many; bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there: and it shall be, that of whom I say unto thee, This shall go with thee, the same shall go with thee; and of whomsoever I say unto thee, This shall not go with thee, the same shall not go.⁵ So he brought down the people unto the water: and the Lord said unto Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink.⁶ And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, were three hundred men: but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water.⁷ And the Lord said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand: and let all the other people go every man unto his place.”

When Gideon was raised up by the Lord to go fight the invading Midianites, he gathered a large army.  After all, he was going to fight an opposing army of about 135,000 people (Judges 8:10).  But the Lord had other plans.  He stated that if Israel won the war, they would be pridefully lifted up, thinking that they had won in their own strength.  They had used their numbers to defeat an army of equal or lesser value.  So God whittled down the Israeli army to a group of only 300 men.  300 vs. 135,000.  A ratio of 1 to 1,350!  An impossible feat!  Why would God do this?  So that when victory came, no one would be able to boast in self or the might of their army.  The only way victory would be possible would be through supernatural means!

I think that this is how God often works.  He sets impossible circumstances before us, so that when the impossible happens, He is CLEARLY the cause and we give Him all the glory.  We take none of it for ourselves.  A similar thing happened on my vacation.

When we left Minneapolis airport on August 26^th, flying to Houston, we knew that Hurricane Harvey was fast approaching and was already starting to make landfall.  But our flights were showing on schedule, so we left anyways.  As we approached Houston for landing, we went through much turbulence.  I had never flown before, so I did not realize that this was uncommon.  I just thought that that is how flights work!  But we later met the co-pilot and a stewardess in the airport and they explained that it was the worst turbulence that they had ever experienced!  Our “victory” of getting to this vacation Cruise in New Orleans was being whittled…

We quickly discovered that our connecting flight to New Orleans was cancelled.  I had prayed before this trip that I would be filled with a heart of worship for the entire trip, so I did not panic.  My heart was rejoicing, for I saw the sovereign hand of the Lord at work in this, setting up “difficulties,” so that He would be glorified when the victory came.  I KNEW that this was the case, so my heart was settled in faith and worship.  I actually found myself rejoicing in the difficult circumstances (which was probably very irritating to my brothers travelling with me, as I just kept smiling and saying, “Trust the Lord”).

The airline quickly rescheduled our flight for 2pm.  So we found a place to sit and wait and I drifted off to sleep.  Minutes later, my brother woke me up in a panic saying that the two o’clock flight had been cancelled as well!  What were we to do?  We had to be to our Cruise by noon the next day or we would miss it (and at that point, we were under the impression that there were no refunds)!  I kept rejoicing in my heart and worshiping the sovereign hand of the Lord, but my brother was getting very anxious.  We went to wait in the customer service line and found that it was HUGE!  It would take us hours to get through it!

We eventually got called up to the front desk (while also wondering where our bags were) and were told that nothing was leaving today.  They could get us to New Jersey and connect the following morning to New Orleans, putting us in NO by 9am.  That left us NO ROOM for error.  If ANYTHING delayed that flight, we would miss our cruise.  We logically concluded that this was an unreasonable assumption.  This hurricane had just arrived.  It wasn’t going anywhere.  Tomorrow morning’s flight was just as likely to be cancelled and we would be stuck in Houston as our ship sailed away.  We had to get to New Orleans immediately.

So we started thinking about renting a car.  But my dad had told us that the car rental places probably weren’t renting because of potential flood hazards.  And as we left the line, a man told us that he had tried to get a car and was denied.  They told him that nothing was leaving Houston due to the dangerous conditions.  Nonetheless, I stayed in joy and worship in my heart, KNOWING that God was working this for our good and His glory!

We got through to AVIS car rental and they said that they could give us a car!  Now we just needed to find our bags.  We had heard over the loud speaker (while we were in customer service line) at the airport that all New Orleans luggage was available at the pickup.  So we went down to baggage claim.  3 of us quickly found our bags, but one brothers bag was missing!  I stayed rejoicing and worshiping, again seeing the Lord “whittle down” the strong arm of the flesh, but I could also discern that my optimism and joy was starting to annoy my brothers.  So the Lord cautioned me to keep my joy to myself!

My brother went to the lost baggage claim and started to wait.  Meanwhile, time was passing and we had a three o’clock appointment with the car rental place.  If we weren’t there on time, the car rental agent had said, he couldn’t guarantee us our car.  But I knew the Lord would work this out.  We agreed that two of us would go get the car, while the other two waited for the bag.  While at the car rental place, we got a call from our brothers that the bag had been found and they were on their way!

We got our car, but there were concerns of flooding.  My dad (who was watching the news on the hurricane), said that we needed to watch out for washed out roads, and a map that one of my brothers looked up showed several closed roads.  But again, I KNEW that the Lord would get us there.  All the obstacles, all the “whittling down” of the strong arm of the flesh, and we were symbolically left with a meek 300 to take on 135,000!

But we drove though the evening, all the roads were clear (although we hit some heavy rains for a bit outside of New Orleans), and we arrived in New Orleans around 10pm.  We then made our cruise and enjoyed perfect weather and calm seas for the entire trip.  The Lord had sovereignly directed us around the entire storm and we never experienced any hardships (other than lack of faith).

The Lord answered my prayer and I stayed in a heart of worship the entire trip.  There were difficulties and lessons learned with my own sin (love of money, selfishness, patiently forbearing with my brothers, etc.), but the Lord blessed us immensely!  We were able to meet nice people, we were able to witness to a few and hand out Gospel tracts, we saw AMAZING things and stunning views, and we got to enjoy God’s creation!  It was a glorious cruise and HE orchestrated the victory!