Judges 7:9-25
Standing before the Midianite camp with only 300 men, waves of fear still surged in Gideon’s heart. God, knowing his anxiety, sent him down to the enemy camp. There, Gideon overheard a dream about a loaf of barley bread tumbling into the Midianite camp and overturning it. Hearing the certainty of victory from the lips of the enemy finally transformed Gideon into a true worshiper.
Gideon handed his 300 men trumpets and empty jars with torches inside, rather than swords. In the dead of night, they blew the trumpets and smashed the jars. With the cry, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” the torches hidden inside pierced the darkness the moment the jars broke. Confused by the sudden noise and light, the Midianite army turned their swords against each other and collapsed.
The victory of this war did not lie in powerful weapons. The secret of victory was in the “breaking of the jars.” When a jar is whole, the light of the torch is trapped and invisible. Only when the clay jar is shattered can the light within pour out into the world.
Our lives are the same. God has placed the precious “light of Jesus Christ” within us, these “jars of clay.” Yet, if we remain hard and whole, refusing to let our ego be broken, the light within can never be revealed. When the jars of our pride, plans, and strength are shattered in the midst of suffering and obedience, the world finally sees the light of God through us.
Am I too busy protecting my own “jar” today? God is waiting for us to be broken. For only when we are broken does God’s battle truly begin. When we cry out “The sword of the Lord!” and lift high the torch within us, the Midianites before us will fall, and God’s brilliant victory will prevail.