The psalmist writes in Psalm 119:11, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” For years now, I have used this passage to push myself to memorize scripture.  It has challenged me given me the motivation to memorize so that I would learn not to sin and walk upright and holy before the Lord.  This is a good motivation and one that I would suggest anyone to use in order to memorize more of scripture.  Store it in your heart so that you might now sin against God. More recently though, I have seen another reason to store the word of God in my heart. For encouragement in times of trials and suffering. I hope this encourages you to store the word up in your heart.

There is an old, old story from the Bible that I can’t even count on one hand how many times I heard as a child growing up in church.  It is the story of Gideon in Judges 6-7, where the Lord delivered the Israelites out of the hand of the Midianites with only 300 men.  The story begins with the call of Gideon from God to “save Israel from the hand of Midian” (6:14). Gideon responds by saying, “my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house” (6:15). From the beginning we are shown the inability of Gideon to execute this task.  After a few signs of confirmation performed by God, we turn the page to Judges chapter 7 and see a few more astounding things take place.  In the beginning of chapter 7 we find God removing men from the army, bringing the size of the army from 32,000 men to 10,000 and then finally down to 300 men.  Seriously? So, despite an already insufficiently sized clan, the Lord strips the army even further.  Why? “The Lord said to Gideon, ‘The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’’” (7:2).  He does this so that He can be shown to be the provider of the victory and Israel with trust in the Lord.

This story came to my mind as I accepted the call of my life to full time vocational ministry and began to look at my resume on paper. The insufficience of my ability quickly came to the forefront.  Due to choices that I had made in the past, all of which I still believe are decisions made inside the sovereign plan of God for my life, I am left now with a resume (a clan) that is nothing pretty on paper in the eyes of the church. I am the “least in my family.” Since this realization, I have been stripped even further of any ability of my own to carry out the call of God in my life without His hand being intricately involved.  I find myself as Gideon did, unable to bring anything about in my own power.  Yet, joy fills my heart because I am reminded of the countless times in the Bible where the Lord has acted in this manner,  as He did with Gideon.

“Man can do that, let’s see what God can do.” I heard this phrase as I sat down with my pastor and began to tell him my heart towards full-time ministry.  Through this statement and the challenge of the word which was stored in my heart, I can now stand (or rather bow) in utter dependence on God to move.  Man can earn a degree, man can use charisma to get a job, man could accomplish all that is done to spruce up a resume…”man can do that”….

Let’s see what God does!

- one who knows he is in the Potter’s hands