Gideon: By his own admission, his family was the weakest of his tribe, and he was the weakest in his family (Judges 6: 15-16). Midianites: Big bullies who oppressed the Israelites back in the day. As the story goes, this little-nobody-Gideon is doing manual labor for his dad (I'm thinking that this might be akin to working at Walmart - not exactly a career - or even a job - that causes anyone to preen), when an angel calls him, "a mighty man of valor" (Judges 6: 12). Huh? Oh, you mean this other guy, right? Nope, I'm talkin' to you. Fast forward and we find this little-nobody-Gideon camping near Israel's oppressors with a team of 32,000. This seems like a lot until Gideon checks out the enemy and finds that there are so many Midianites and their pals, the Amalekites, that no one can count them. They seemed "like locust in abundance and their camels were without number as the sand that is on the seashore." (Judges 7: 12) Gulp. What does God
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