God equips us for battle through spiritual armor (Eph. 6:10-18, ESV). We are victors because of Christ, not our power or strength, but God’s. God uses the weak and foolish things by the world’s standards to show His power and strength (I Cor. 1:27-28, ESV). He gets all the glory.
We see an example of this in the OT. When we are introduced to Gideon in Judges 6-7, he is threshing wheat in a winepress. Typically, the threshing floor was in a high place in the open so the wind would blow away the chaff. But Gideon hid in the winepress from the Midianites, who were oppressors. God sent him a message that he wanted him to fight them.
Gideon pleads with God by telling Him he is the weakest person in the weakest clan. But that is precisely whom God wants to use. He reassures Gideon that He will be with him. When he arrives for battle, God reduces what army he has from 32,000 to a mere 300 men. With God’s wisdom and power, they came away victorious. Gideon was fearful and didn’t want to go- but in his obedience, God used him to carry out a purpose.
2 Chron. 20:15-17 is similar; we read about God telling Jehoshaphat to stand firm, fear not, and that they would see the salvation of the Lord fight for them. The ESV Study Bible notes that it was not Judah’s place to take up arms but rather to exercise their faith and offer prayer and praise to God. Jehoshaphat’s call to faith is based on Is. 7:9, “If you are not firm in the faith, you will not be firm at all.”
Jehoshaphat calls the people to believe in the Lord your God, and they will succeed (2 Chron. 20:20). Without faith, it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). Whoever draws near to God must believe that He exists and that He will reward the ones who seek Him.
Knowing what we deserve and who we are by nature invokes fear, but knowing we are chosen and redeemed by the power of the blood of Christ, and we know whose we are,= no fear. It all leads to faith and obedience in the One who made us and fights for us, the One we can believe will be with us through all our battles.
I have battled a fear of public speaking since I was a child. I would have gladly taken an F instead of doing an oral book report, but that wasn’t a choice. I will say that in my jobs, and now in my personal life, there are many opportunities when God calls me to speak in public. It is still not the easiest, and I am not an eloquent speaker, but I have learned to trust God, whom I say must have a sense of humor, to help me through it. In that way, I can personally relate to God using the weakest for His purpose to bring glory to His name.
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