{"id":4452,"date":"2022-12-24T14:49:49","date_gmt":"2022-12-24T20:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4452"},"modified":"2022-12-24T14:49:49","modified_gmt":"2022-12-24T20:49:49","slug":"devotional-on-judges-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-judges-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Judges"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-W_dPOMlgRbQ\/XaeaLbYydBI\/AAAAAAABCHs\/yb7UrW89560FDGwwo-2vGJuKCEwEPeY1wCKgBGAsYHg\/s1600\/P9259744.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Grand Canyon, AZ<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>God smiling<br \/>\nJudges 7: You have too large an army with you.<br \/>\nThe Lord has such a sense of humor. Gideon\u2019s been rounding up the troops to take on the mighty Midian army and he\u2019s done a pretty good job of it. Now they\u2019re on their way into battle, but first, God has some trimming to do. First, those who are afraid are invited to leave. Two thirds of the army decides this is a good time to go home. Then, as they get a drink of water, the few who show &#8220;battle sense&#8221; are kept while everyone else goes home. Gideon was reluctant enough to take on this fight. He must be beside himself as the Lord keeps whittling down his army. He\u2019s now left with just 300 fighters. Of course, God has a purpose in all this. Even as we see the Lord\u2019s disqualification of almost all of Gideon&#8217;s army, we see that the Lord is quite intentional here. If Gideon&#8217;s large force wins a victory they\u2019ll take all the credit for it. The Lord wants not only to bring deliverance to Israel, but to restore them to himself as well. I believe proper preparation for things I attempt is wise and reasonable, but I also know that the ultimate Source in my life is, not my plans and resources, but my Lord. Sometimes, he has to whittle down my approach so, when it all works out, I\u2019ll know who it is that gets the credit. And, as he does it, I think he&#8217;s smiling to himself.<br \/>\nTake Away: The Lord loves turning the tables and doing the impossible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God smiling Judges 7: You have too large an army with you. The Lord has such a sense of humor. Gideon\u2019s been rounding up the troops to take on the mighty Midian army and he\u2019s done a pretty good job of it. Now they\u2019re on their way into battle, but first, God has some trimming [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1511,7],"tags":[137,251,396,571,920],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4452"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14145,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452\/revisions\/14145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}