Perhaps you’ve had this experience. You are at your favorite restaurant, anticipating a scrumptious meal, your favorite of all. You order it. The 9-ounce filet mignon, medium-well, with baked potato and green beans. Your stomach growls, and your taste buds are at full alert as you mentally rehearse the flavor of this succulent dish. But when the server finally delivers it, you discover that he has brought you spaghetti and meatballs instead! Not what you ordered! Not what you ‘needed’! You’re disappointed and surprised, to say the least!

Well, if you can relate to that experience, then you know how the ancient Israelites must have felt during that most tumultuous period of the Judges. In Judges 6:1-6 we learn of the awful conditions that the Israelites endured as they lived in the ‘Land of Promise’ among their enemies, the Canaanites. The Israelites had once again done “what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (v. 1). And, as a consequence of their rebellion, “the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian [aka ‘Canaanites’] seven years” (v. 1). It was a ghastly experience for the Covenant nation! Their terrible afflictions, which came directly from the hand of Yahweh, brought them “very low,” and they desperately “cried out for help to the Lord” (v. 6).

Clearly, their anxious cries for help from Yahweh anticipated an immediate deliverance from their pains and tribulations. It was assumed to be axiomatic: ‘We pray. Then God gives us what we want, what we need, right now.’ However, a funny thing happened on the way to their recovery. Rather than sending relief in the form of another powerful warrior-judge who would beat back those pesky Canaanites, “the Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel” (v. 8). They had ordered the fillet mignon. But the divine ‘Waiter’ delivered the spaghetti and meatballs!! They requested a fighter, a man of ruthless power and military prowess. But the Lord delivered a preacher, ‘armed’ only with the Word of Yahweh! What gives? What did this mean? And, more importantly for us, what does it mean?

On Sunday we will look carefully at the events recorded in Judges 6:7-10, and we will see that there is a very important lesson for us today. So before we gather for worship and the ministry of the Word, re-familiarize yourself with the storyline from Judges 6:1-10. And then let’s all pray that we will understand why it is that sometimes the Lord does not give us what we’ve ordered, or what we think we need. And this is what proves that He loves us!