This year, the Lord is with you

The story is told of a man who put an eagle’s egg into the nest of a barnyard chicken, and the eaglet hatched and grew up with the brood of chickens. All his life he did what the chickens did: scratched in the dirt for seeds and insects, clucked and cackled, and never flew more than a few feet off the ground. Then one day he saw a magnificent bird soaring gracefully above him and asked, “What a beautiful creature. What’s it called?” The chicken next to him said, “That’s an eagle, the king of all birds. But don’t give him any mind, because you could never be like him.” So the eagle returned to pecking in the dirt and died thinking it was a barnyard chicken. Who told you that you don’t have potential? Who told you that you won’t succeed in life or make an impact? Certainly not God! When the angel of the Lord called Gideon to deliver Israel from the Midianites, he responded with a litany of excuses about why he wasn’t qualified for the job. But the angel told him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!…Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel…Have not I sent you?” (vv. 12, 14 NKJV). Notice two important things in this story. First, God spoke to the destiny within Gideon, not to his present circumstances. Second, God reminded him that it was not the power of the one being sent, but of the One sending him that would win the battle. Today you are “mighty” because God is with you.