Mighty Hero, the Lord Is with You!

There is a story of a man who put an eagle’s egg in the nest of some farmyard chickens. When hatched the eagle did what all the other chickens did, scratching in the dirt for food, never looking more than a few feet off the ground, concentrating on what was in front of him. One day he happened to look up and saw a magnificent bird soaring gracefully in the sky above him. “What’s that beautiful creature?” he asked. A nearby chicken said to him, “That’s the king of all the birds, an eagle, but we’re just chickens so don’t bother about him.” The eagle sighed and returned to pecking in the dirt, thinking he was nothing more than a farmyard chicken until the day he died.

What a sad story! Do you sometimes think of yourself as nothing more than the Christian equivalent of a farmyard chicken? If so, who told you that? Certainly not God! What or who has made you believe that you don’t have the potential to succeed, to impact people you meet for Jesus? Are you going to let your past or present determine your future when you have the King of the universe telling you that, in Him, you have the ability to achieve the full potential of the person He has made in His own likeness and adopted as His precious son and daughter.

The verse we started off with is when God sends a message to someone who probably feels like the equivalent of a farmyard chicken. Gideon was filled with fear, not confidence. When he was addressed as a ‘mighty hero’, he probably looked around to see who else was there, because that certainly couldn’t be a message for him. But it was. God was calling the eagle to emerge from among the chickens and take his rightful place. Today He is speaking to you to do the same.

Notice the two important things in this story which helped Gideon emerge from a place of fear to a place of bravery, from a place of accepting second best to claiming the very best, from hiding away to stepping forward. Firstly, God spoke to Gideon’s destiny and not to his present circumstances. Secondly, God reminded Gideon that whomever God calls He also equips (“the Lord is with you”). God’s power is in the One who sends, not the one who is sent. You go forward in God’s power.

Perhaps it’s time to stop thinking the least of yourself, to stop believing that you are just a weak Christian who will never accomplish much for God. Instead, it’s time to rise up on the wings of an eagle and to enter the destiny God has for you, regardless of your age, ability, or background. It’s time to seek God for what He has for you to do that you alone can do. Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!

Prayer: Dear Lord, thank You that You see beyond what I see about myself. You are not in the business of creating rubbish, but gold forged in the fire. You see beyond what I see about myself and calls me into a future where I will see You at work in my life for Your glory. You call me into the destiny You have for me. Today I choose to look up and not down, t no longer be satisfied with second best, but only with Your best for me. Help me to see myself through Your eyes and not my own. Amen.