Overlooking Christians

And the LORD said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against Me, saying, mine own hand hath saved me.  Judges, Chapter 7, verse 2.

This is an interesting passage when you know why God said this.  Gideon was going to fight the Midianites for God.  He called all his soldiers (the Israelites) and a large army gathered.  God said, (paraphrased) “If I have the Israelites win the battle against the Midianites while you have lots of soldiers, you won’t realize the victory is because I had you overpower them.  Instead, the Israelites will think that they had won the battle because of their large army.
“I want you to weed out the majority of your soldiers so that there is only a small band of your soldiers left fighting against the Midianites.  Then they will know that only I, the One True God, was in control of having your small band of men win the battle against the huge army of Midianites.”
The small band of Israelites did overpower the huge army of Midianites.  God staged all of this so that the Israelites would have conclusive proof that He is the One True God.  (Feel free to read Judges, Chapters 7 and 8, to find out more about this.)

It wasn’t the war part that impressed me so much.  It was that God went to such great lengths to show the Israelites that He was looking after them.  I think God does this in our everyday lives, as well.  I don’t think we Overlooking Christians always stop to realize that it’s God taking care of us.  I think we chalk it off to coincidence or have some other way of rationalizing it.  I think God wants us to open our eyes and see how He works in our lives each and everyday. God isn’t just some holy figure way off in heaven, but is intimately involved in every aspect of our lives.

Since this is an example of the positive influence God has made on my walk with Christ, this may not reflect the whole meaning of the Bible verses.