Too Little Is Too Much

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 7:2

Gideon thought, like any normal person, that there was safety in numbers. What God wanted him to learn is that God does not need our “much”. What we consider a lot is not necessary for our God. What we consider too little is exactly what God uses to do much.

Many of God’s people today think they need much to do much for the Lord. Often times, all of that gets in the way of God being able to do His work. The only thing God really needed from Gideon was a willing vessel. The same is true for us today. God needs willing vessels that He can use to show His “much”, which is much more than we can imagine.

We want to look at the great and the capable and those that have the resources, while God is looking for the small and the incapable and those with no resources. He does great thins through the small. Did God not use a small boy David to defeat the great giant Goliath?

God enables the incapable. Did God not use Moses and Gideon and Peter and many others in the Bible that thought they were incapable? Our capacity is of no concern to the One who enables the lame to walk.

For those without resources, God provides the necessary resources. Did not Jesus use a little boy and his limited resources to feed the five thousand? Did not he use a widow with only enough resources for one more meal to feed the prophet and her family for the rest of the famine?

How often are we tempted to limit God by what we see. We are reminded time and again that the just shall live by faith, but still tend to want to look and see what we have and limit God by that. God wants us to trust Him for every part of our life, even the parts we think we are capable of controlling our self.

We don’t have to wait until we have much to offer, God is waiting for us to just come to Him willing and open to His working. Paul had so much to look to for confidence. He had education, standing in the religious community, his own self righteousness. It was not until he gave up all of those things that he was able to really become useful to God.

Paul tells us that he did not come with excellency of speech, which he obviously had in his natural ability. But he did not rely on his ability to speak, but on the power of the Holy Spirit. Man’s “too little” is God’s “too much”.

Gordon Crook