What if we're not ready?

What if the commission is clear and the path is laid out, but we falter?

If we struggle to boldly obey, if we want another sign, if we lack the courage to follow where God leads.

After all, aren't we all just dust?

This is a story about what it's like to pursue a calling that scares you.

It's a story about oppression and deliverance and bravery and cowardice, about partnership

and excuses and the seeking of signs, earnestly and otherwise.

But most of all, this is a story about what's required, truly required, for the largest battles of our lives, and where that is to be found.

I'm Justin Gerhard able to be. The The southern and eastern forces are assembling.

Midianite, Amalekite and Bedouin tributaries meeting one another as they tumble down a mountain,

combining into a single surging rapid, a riot of violent momentum.

For years they have oppressed the Yahweh forsaking people of northern Israel,

fording the Jordan at harvest time and treating the Hebrews' crops and

livestock like a smorgasbord, killing any Jews who get in their way, leaving only once they've

had their fill. Midian has milked this cow for seven years, and now it seems they aim to butcher

it.

On mass, their soldiers cross over the river and make camp in the Valley of Jesreal,

staging their invasion, plotting their takeover, licking their chops,

daring the fractured Israelites and their sleeping God to oppose the onslaught. Every Hebrew watches with macabre panicked interest, but there is one whose heart hammers

more forcefully than any other.

Jerub Baal, Gideon, son of Joash, of Ophra.

The one destiny, or better divinity, has chosen for this moment.

...