29 - Looking for a Sign? Lessons from Gideon's Fleece

Have you ever wished God would just make the next step obvious?

This week we're catching up on summer life, from basketball hoops falling on cars, magazine subscriptions, and our favorite summer salads, to a conversation that challenged both of us: How do we know when God is leading us?

Using the story of Gideon in Judges 6-8, we talk about Gideon's famous fleece, why God patiently met him in his fear, and what it looks like to seek wisdom instead of certainty.

We also explore why God reduced Gideon's army from 32,000 men to just 300, what that teaches us about trusting Him instead of our own strength, and how our greatest sphere of influence may simply be the people God has already placed in front of us.

Whether you're waiting on a big decision, praying for direction, or simply trying to be faithful in your everyday life, we hope this conversation encourages you to trust that God is already at work, even when you can't see the whole picture. 💚

Scriptures Mentioned

• Judges 6–8: Gideon and the fleece 
• James 1:2–4: Consider it pure joy when you face trials 
•  Reference to Israel's wilderness journey and God's faithfulness 
•  Discussion of the Holy Spirit and how believers today have guidance Gideon didn't yet have

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to 27 Good.

SPEAKER_01 0:02

I'm Amy. I'm Patty. And Happy to have you here. We say the same thing every morning. At some point we're gonna have a intro. A song on an intro. We'll get there. We'll probably at some point have ad breaks because people will be wanting us to advertise.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

We're taking our first sponsor. Right. Let us know. We won't just take anyone, we'll only take what we actually believe in. That's what all the Instagram are saying. Yeah, we'll yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

It'll probably be I feel like they're all um some version of a drink.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Yep. We could take sure house. We would happily take that sponsorship. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

That's a good one. We'll do it.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

What's up? What's up? So a couple weeks ago, I stayed at my sister's house and there was a storm in the basketball hoop fell on my car and it knocked off by Mir.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Well actually, when you sent me the picture, you're so lucky it didn't do more damage. I know. It just knocked off the mirror.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Knocked yeah, I could have hit the windshield. So what's so funny is it's really not that funny, but it is funny. Neither are Jason and I, which I'm so thankful he does not get mad about. We just don't get like upset about this stuff. Yeah. Like it's just a car. It's the same. Yeah. Whatever. It is annoying. Like it's annoying. I'll it finally goes to the shop next week to get fixed, and why does it take a week to get fixed? Just how that's.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Yeah, you're like, stick that mirror right back.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

He's like, the trim, the paint, we gotta paint the whole door. But anyway, so my brother-in-law was so serious and it was so funny when I w came out for breakfast in the morning. He's like, we gotta talk about something. I'm like, what could this be? Like, what's wrong? He's like, basketball hoop fell in your car. And I was like, whew, sigh of relief. No one's heard. And we could drive it home, so it's deck taped, but I can't go through a car wash, so my car's filthy, of course, on the outside. Just summer, we live back a long lane, all the farming. So I went to the body shop and I had asked the guy, like, probably can't go through a car wash, huh? Because I have had a car wash subscription previously that was amazing, loved it. He's like, it'll just rip your mirror right off if you go in one of those.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Well, what if you went on one of those, the ones I don't touch? Then un then but still using enough water pressure.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Yeah, I have no idea. It's just duct tape done.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

There's this really big Tupperware container that I have, and it's my favorite one. It's this giant round. Right now I have cracker mix in it. Just hold it on there. And the lid has a crack and it's been duct tape for a long time. And it goes through the dishwasher.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

It'd probably be fine. Right. See. Do touch list. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Hopefully they'll just wash it for me when they have it. I know I always think that. Every time my car is somewhere, I think they're gonna send it back clean. They don't.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

They don't.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

I don't know, maybe they will. I'm not sure where where are you bringing it?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

It's Pilata. They'll probably wash it, hopefully. Probably. They have to paint it. Surely they're washing out.

unknown 2:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

So when I was at the body shop waiting on them to look at it and do the quote and stuff, there were these country living magazines, taste of home. And what a pleasure to not be looking at my phone. Interesting. And especially for recipes. So I thought maybe I would be looking at some magazine subscriptions.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

We talked about this briefly before the started because I'm bracing myself. Don't do it. It's just more clutter, it's more stuff. My dad has six magazine subscriptions. He's always sending them home with me for the boys to read articles, and then it just ends up being piled down in my house. They're piled with him. They have probably more than six subscriptions. He listens to this podcast. Dad, how many subscriptions do you have?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Once a week sounds nice. Like some fun mail. I'm tired of bills. I'm tired of nothing fun with that. What magazine comes once a week? I don't know. I'm kidding. I think they're more. I just meant if I got four.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Did you watch the new Double Wears Prada? Yes. Isn't it a lot about kind of how that's done? That industry. I think it's making a comeback. Because you because of you.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Because one person wants samples.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Our old dentist had and My Guilty Pleasure Forever is a people magazine. I just love the slippery gossip. Love all of that, all the photos. But I do also love a taste of home or country living. But I always loved it. It was really great. But I think that's the only place I would love it.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

I think it just is anything. Um okay, so another little dovetail, but I'm gonna bring us back home. I've been seeing on Instagram, have you seen the ads where it's like buy this thing and make your phone a home phone now? And you hook it, put it somewhere in your kitchen, and then you sit your phone in it?

SPEAKER_01 4:10

No.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Okay, well I have. But one thing I'm asking myself, instead of swiping up and buying this stuff that I don't need.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Like it'll make it all inland.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

No, it just is a spot to put your phone, so it's like it's a designated spot. Okay. Is what do I have that could work and do the same thing? So I got out a bowl I have, this wood bowl that Jason's uncle made. And I've been putting my phone in there. And it's just kind of nice to you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Just like Oh like you're putting it away?

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Kind of.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Not really.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

It's just like here's a designated spot.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

You must feel really like you're in your f on your phone too much or something right now.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Yeah, probably. It just I think uh in the evenings, they just go so fast right now. We get home and it's just I don't know. Mm-hmm. Yeah, great. So is the bowl working? Okay, so let me get yeah, so the bowl's fine, it's great, it's nice also. The other thing, the other it's dual motivation here, is that I always lose my phone. And so it's just like, okay, if I'm putting my phone down, it goes in the bowl. And they're not searching for it, you know?

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Listen, everyone, you don't need to buy a tool. You can just use a bowl.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Just get a bowl. You probably have one.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

I hope everyone has a bowl.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Everyone has an extra bowl. Okay, so the point is how nice to just sit on sit on I don't know, sit outside and drink your coffee and squirrel through a taste of foam. But the best thing for me is. Yeah, you're already like a big book.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

And I bought and I do not have a Kindle or dude on my phone. I it's all print. The rare person that still gets a book in their hand.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

I should do that more. When we go to the library, it's only kids' books because I feel like when we I got a stack probably.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

You can just come to me. I know take one of my books home.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

But I told my mother-in-law this and she's been giving me her taste of home. I got the first one. So here we go. I'm getting it without signing up for the subscription. Wow, you really could have saved everyone five minutes.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

I love it. I love that that worked out for you.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Ask and you shall receive. Right. That's the that's what I'm saying, guys.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

And now this now this podcast is gonna be like Taste of Home highlights. Stay tuned.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Well, one thing that came before the summer, before the Taste of Home, that I wanted to share is I've only done it once, so hate to be that girl, but it's so I won't yet. You do this probably. But I made the most delicious fun summer salad. And I think it'd be so fun to do one a week. I feel like you do this already. Yeah, it's just new stuff that I wouldn't normally buy. It was romaine lettuce, tangerine oranges, blueberries, grilled chicken, goat cheese, crumbles.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

I love a goat cheese salad.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

And shoot, what was the dressing? Like a balsam. No. Oh my gosh, it's not a balsamic. Like a raspberry vinaigrette or strawberry. I you could have done that. Maybe it was a balsamic. Yeah. It was delicious. Just the best. So fun to have. Oh, and candied pecans.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Oh yeah, that made the salad.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

So I just have to do something. Like, how fun. Gotta do that each week. Yeah, love it. What's up with you? Do you have anything to share? I'm just taking all of it.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

No, it's just summer break. We're living the dream. Summer break.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah. Have you already said the thing that Annie told you that not everyone's on summer break anytime you're like, just save for one more beer. Just stay all night.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

I had to tell Amy this because it was that. I think it was stay for another beer on the porch or something. And she's an Anegram too. So of course I'm like, fine. Fine, I will. And I was like, you can tell me no because Annie keeps telling me. Yeah. Anytime that I text Annie all day long and then I'm waiting, like anxiously waiting for a reply, she's like, not everyone is on summer break. Not everyone. Some of us are working.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Some of us are working. Why aren't you lying to me? The last little tidbit, I'm just taking over catching up, but this Sunday we just had the best time at church. The church we had started going to, the old pastor is retiring, and I just, he's my favorite. And anytime there's a different pastor, I just immediately am like, let's not go. I don't actually mean that, but do you know what I mean? Where it's like, I don't want to. But the message was so great, and ultimately it was about where is your joy source and how we keep like looking for joy in other places, and no matter our circumstances, and so for me, work is so hard right now. There's just been so much change, and I feel like especially last week, I just keep catching myself being grumpy about it. And not even I don't even know if it's just grumpy, but sad maybe, or just like not quite yourself, yeah. Like a little bit of a damper. Yeah, and so he said, You can easily get back up on the joy train. He really called people out for that. We are not called to be grumpy Christians ever. We don't need to be honking our horns at people. We don't need to be just it I feel like we talk about this all the time. Yeah. But just being kind to people. He reminded us that in James, trials are a we're supposed to look at trials as a joy. Which sounds like just like my car broke down, what a joy. What a joy so hard.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

What a joy they to go bring your car to the shop.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Right. And then the other thing he said that I thought was interesting was that we all have influence, and how are you using your influence? And again, this kind of goes back to what we've talked about with that book. We both loved Theo of Golden. But it really is like, gosh, you are impacting everyone around you, whether it's those people in your family when you first wake up or people at work, and what does your influence look like?

SPEAKER_01 8:59

That's one thing actually I wrote down for what we're gonna talk about today is that that's what God wants us to do is to wage war against the enemy within our spheres of influence. And I think an important thing to remember is that our spheres of influence is it could just be your home. Like right now, we're raising children, and what a powerful job that God has given us to raise these minus boys, right? Raise these uh young boys into godly men. And I think, yeah, that's right. It's a it's a responsibility, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

And I think sometimes you forget, or you think, or I do at least, like, well, no one's paying attention to me. No one you know what I mean. Like, we're not people with massive followings that people are waiting to see, you know.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Yeah, or I think we've talked about discipleship before. You think discipleship is like, well, like in this story So we're gonna talk about Gideon's fleece. Yes. Let's just go into it.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Yeah. So this is from Judges six through eight. But what were you about to say?

SPEAKER_01 9:49

I'm not leading even or like Moses, right? I'm not leading his people away from slavery. That's not my calling, and at least I don't think so. But it's important to remember that your calling is just as big. And so it's hard sometimes, I think, when we think about things, Bible stories like this, or big things talked about in church, of like, how am I supposed to be leading? And it's really small. It's small, it's being joyful, it's being kind, it's I'm a teacher, it's being nice, nice in my classroom and extending grace, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Well, and that's actually he said something similar to that. He's like the prayer that the pastor said at the end was just saying, We should be praying, Lord, I'm available for whatever you are calling me to. And I just think kind of a scary, it's not scary, but it's a little bit, what is is it an Isaiah where it's like, send me and I'll go. And it's like, would I though? Like that's scary. It's scary stuff, I think. Okay, so let's talk about Gideon's flea. So one thing we thought would be fun. So Patty and I have both read Bible in the Year last few years, and we were just talking about this before we started, that there are just a million Bible stories that you don't you don't remember them all.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

You don't remember them all, and sometimes you read something. I felt like I've just done it twice, and sometimes it felt like there was each time there was something else God was trying to point me to. This was Amy's idea. She said maybe we hit on some Bible stories, and I think it's gonna be so fun that if we do this every once in a while.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Yeah, especially to remember guys, we're just a couple of women.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

We are not theologian trying to learn.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

So if you were always here for correction, if you want to teach us something else, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Or if you read it a different way. I joked that I today when Amy got here, I was like, I did my homework assignment because I was like read back through, took some notes, she wanted to talk about this. So I'll let you start, I think.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Yeah, so let me first tell how this came, how this story came up. I have a coworker, Jamie, who told me about, gosh, what was it? Was it something I was praying for or about some decision months ago? And she said, Well, Gideon's fleece. And I was like, What's Gideon's fleece? I don't know that story. And so Gideon was a farmer, an actual fearful farmer is one of the things I read, who got transformed into a military hero. And so he was an Israelite and they were being oppressed by the Midianites, which I always get. This is where the Bible gets really hairy for me. It feels like there's so many wars, so many kings.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Oh, yeah, so I think an easy one to remember is that they were brought out of slavery, right? Like Moses brought them out of slavery, but it's long over. This is long, long after that. They were 400 years of slavery, and then after that they were wandering the wilderness, that's over, right? And now they're in Canaan, it's flowing with milk and honey, and God's got them right where he wants them to be. Like, look, you're free, you're do- Yeah. All he wants is follow my rules, follow what I want you to do. And they cannot. They cannot.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

When you read through Exodus and Numbers, right? It's just like time and time again, they cannot get it. And then it's tumbling because I'm like, ah, same. Yeah, that's the tr the truth of it.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

And obviously, not to like that extent of like we're not worshiping a different god. Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

But that is the thing they do. They're like, okay, Yahweh is another word for the god we worship today, and they just can't, like, they this is where you've heard the story of the golden calf. They melt their jewelry and made a golden calf to worship. It's wild how they can get so far off. But I'm sure God says that about me. Come on, how can we do that? Well, yeah it's not quite the same.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Like, we don't even use the word idols, right? Right, but still, anytime that we're letting like secular ideas lead us in a way, we see something on TV and we're like, oh, we can do that, and it's not really what maybe God would would be pushing us to do. Anytime we do that, we're basically doing the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Yes, completely with you. Okay, so the interesting thing about Gideon is I actually don't know his heritage, like who his parents were or anything. Maybe it said it.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

I don't think I got that.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

But he was literally in hiding. He was threshing wheat.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Well, they were all in hiding, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Yeah. Because they would hide from the Yeah, but he was specifically down in one of whatever the thing is. Like a cave or something. Yeah, not a c I don't know what it would be. Like something like that, where he's actually hiding because he's afraid. And the angel of God comes to him and says, The Lord is with you, mighty warrior. And I just think that's for me it and this is where Jamie, when she was telling me the story, my co-worker paused and was like, he was not this guy out getting after it. He was afraid. He's hiding, and God still saw him.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Well, wait, when I read that though, it's the angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak. I felt like under a tree or something. Yeah, because sometimes, you know how sometimes in the Bible the angel comes and it's oh my gosh, everyone was so afraid because it's like some giant spectacle. I really felt like it was just like this dude. He just pops up. Like he pops up and he's like, What you doing, Gideon? And I really felt like it was one of those where it's an angel that looks maybe just like other people among us. So then Gideon says, Why has all this happened to us? Yeah, he's like, he brought us up out of Egypt, but now the Lord has abandoned us, right? Which is always what we're thinking. Like God's not even with us, and like obviously he is. He brought you here. Mm-hmm. Just wanted you to listen.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

So then God says that I will be with you, and I will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive. And then Gideon says, If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering. So he goes away, he brings the offering, and then Gideon's like, Alright, I need a sign. Well, more happens. But He lights it on fire or something, right? I don't remember that part. If that's tied to the offering, probably. So what's so interesting is so he says, Okay, God, I need a sign. And he lays down the fleece of a sheep, and first he prays, Okay, when the dew comes up, if this is really a sign that you're gonna lead us out of this, and that you've chosen me to be the warrior, and I have found favor in your eyes, that when I wake up, there will be dew only on the fleece.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

And the ground around it will be dry. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

So he wakes up the next morning and it says, like, he wrung out the water from the fleece. So then, do you want to say what's next?

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Well, so it's never enough, right? Which is how we are too.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Yeah, we're like, give me a sign. Yeah, give me a flop sign. Cool, good sign. But how about one more? Please don't be mad though. Please don't be mad. Does he say something like that? Like, don't get angry with me, though.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Don't get mad, God, but could you just try that one more time, but let's reverse things. So then the second day he wants that the fleece is dry and the ground is wet. Yeah. We might have those reversed, but yeah, I don't remember.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

So then of course God does it again. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

So I feel like too, it's fun to Lynn and like stop and talk through this. Do you still feel like God gives signs? Have you prayed? Like, I was trying to think of an example.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

I remember my mom said my mom said, um yeah, we're too busy to see them. We're too busy to hear them and to see them. One thing that I've always really thought, and I think that probably this came from a sermon in church or something, is for you to get on God's path, like God's not gonna do everything for you. Like, we're still humans that have like choices, right? And so it's more along the lines of like asking God to help you make the right choices, I think. I can't just, I don't know, an example would be looking for a new job. And God's not gonna have somebody come to your door and knock on your door and be like, Are you looking for a new job? Because I have one and it's exactly what you need, right? But if you're actively searching, you've done your resume, you're you're looking and you're praying for that job, I think then it'll come to you. But I don't think it's I think the signs in the Bible are different than what we see now. Yeah. It's not this dramatic. It's the same thing as though like we're not leading his people out of Egypt, right? So it's not quite the same. But I do think that if we're listening, I think God's telling us exactly what we want to hear or what we need to hear more so.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Yes, with you on all that. I also sometimes think, and I don't know if this is rooted in the Bible summary either, maybe it is a free will, that sometimes there's not a wrong choice. It's like sometimes I think he loves us so much he wants to give us the gift of choices and plentiful. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Well, and we can make the wrong choice a thousand times and he's still sitting and waiting for us to make the right choice.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

I hear I knew we were going to. So it's already part of a bigger plan.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Um What do you think the difference is between seeking wisdom and seeking certain certainty?

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Hmm. I think wisdom is when we are seeking and asking for wisdom to be able to discern, but maybe certainty is God. I just want you to tell me what it is.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Yeah. I don't know. What do you think? That's tricky. It's a hard question, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Um, because I also don't know I think that you have peace when you feel when you've made the right choice. I think that's part of it.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Or when you're on the right path, I think it's just doors open for you. Yeah, it's so obvious.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

I have kind of a cool quick story about this. It actually was, gosh, seven and a half years ago when I was applying for jobs. I had quit on a whim, which this is not like typical. My personality, I feel like. It wasn't really on a whim either, but I was just at a terrible place to quit.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

You quit without having another job. Yeah, really.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

And there was like a final straw, and I was like, I'm giving my two weeks, and I should have done it a year and a ago in hindsight. You always I think we always stay somewhere too long. Relationships, work, like any, you know. And we didn't have kids. Finances are just different. Pre when it's you know, it just was easier. Yeah. And so then I quit, and I still remember November 1st was my first was maybe my last day or something. But places shut down over the holidays. No one's hiring. And I was like, oh my gosh, what have I done? I'm never getting it though. Was my best life for about two months until I was like, wait, am I running on hired again? Yeah. No more coffee shop. But what ended up happening was it really was just like the gift of choice, and that's probably why I say that, is then all in one week, I think I had, or maybe it was a two-week span, four or five interviews of all the top jobs I wanted. And it just was like God always works it out, you know? Okay, so one other takeaway is God never he was not mad when Gideon asked again, and he was patient, and I think that we are always fearful to ask again and again, but it just the love he showed, you know, Gideon.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Do you do any of those weird ones of like if the light turns green? Like if some if like someone texts me right now, or I'll stop and get an ice cream. One time when I was really little, I have this very vivid memory of this. And when I was little, the only person in my life who had died and I had suffered a loss was my grandpa, my dad's dad. And he died when I was in first grade. So even then, I probably didn't really have a real understanding, or you know, kids are I was little.

unknown 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

And it was probably shortly after that I would have done this. I think I must have had a hard time because I know I had a frame picture of him on my bedside table. My mom probably gave me one. My mom's Catholic, so it was a lot of him being my guardian angel. And I would pray regularly to him specifically, which is really funny instead of God. And one point in the middle of the night, I was like, it was lights out and laying in my bed, and I wanted a sign that my grandpa was looking over me and listening to me, and my clock creaked right at that moment. Scared the living, like I was terrified. I left that room. I might have slept in my mom's bed that night. I was terrified. And like, don't we sometimes do that? We're like, give me a sign right now, and then not that one. Nope, not that one. Never mind that scared me. I didn't really want grandpa watching me.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

And who knows? It was like who knows if it was real or not, right? In my in my seven-year-old mind, it was absolutely real. But I think that we can do that sometimes. I I want a clear sign that this is what you want from me, and then God's setting this clear sign, and well, that's the hard path.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

And I think it's all yes, or if it's in conflict with what I actually want. Yeah. Which then is like my heart is not aligned. Yeah, or like the secular ideas.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

We've talked about how we want to be center of everything and make our decisions, and that really we don't really want God to make our decisions sometimes because that's not always what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Because I would know better. Right. Right. Sarcasm there in case that doesn't come through.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

You know better, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Okay, so what happens next? Oh yeah, okay. Is the army. So Gideon is like, alright, I got I got it. We're gonna go after them. And they're and you can jump into if you remember more specifics, but essentially there were like thirty-two thousand men, and God says, Alright, that's too many. We need to knock that down because people if you bring that many people, they will not know that it is me. They will think it is the strength of the men, and they need to know that it is God, that it's Yahweh, that is the you guys Why are you guys winning? So it goes down, he says something like, I will tell you who goes and who stays, or something. And it goes down to 10,000. And then Gideon's like, Alright, sounds good. And then God's like, nope, still too many, and it goes down to 320, I think, right? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

They blew their trumpets. You're probably right. Yeah. When the 300 trumpets sounded, oh no, so there's 300 trumpets. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Um, they win. They defeat him. So the whole reason I wanted to share that story, I just thought the sign thing was so fascinating and I had never heard it. And I do kind of feel like I've yet to ask for a crazy sign like that. You know what I mean? You don't think so?

SPEAKER_01 22:52

No, but you're in a time where you could be asking for one.

unknown 22:55

No!

SPEAKER_00 22:56

I think I don't know what what it is. Like, what's the sign? Like the fleece when I put my sweatshirt out there. No, I Yeah, I I don't know. And then I think you can misread signs. Is it Am I morphing things?

SPEAKER_01 23:10

I think the difference between Gideon and us is God is specifically, he sent this got this person to him and he's like, You're a farmer, but I'm gonna have you lead this army. Yeah. And I haven't gotten that calling yet, probably soon. Right, but we do have callings.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

I know. Just not as clear yet as that.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

And I think that that's the thing to remember is that Gideon was afraid of his calling a little bit. I think everybody's a little bit afraid of that.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

When I was looking stuff up, one one challenge that it said was instead of asking God, give me a sign, ask God, help me recognize where you're already leading. Yeah. And so maybe that would be a good prayer for me, for anyone who's trying to make a decision in their life, and to pray for courage, wisdom, patience, trust, and like what Louise said, a listening heart. I think also we don't have the patience that God has. Like we just want to know right away. And well, do you get down on your knees and pray and ask for like I don't know. No, I don't feel like I have intentionally. You know, yeah. I feel like I've written it down, which a little update on my journaling. Oh, yeah. I'm doing decent. And what is fun about journaling is I have like a couple notebooks that I just it's like whatever one's near me, I'll write in, and that's what I take to church. And it's fun to look back on prayers. And I happen to be like the day before Samantha was born, I found this long prayer that was praying about her birth, and it was so funny because it was like baby's doing a week, and then baby's doing a week, then you have the next day next day. But any other thoughts on Gideon's fleece or that story?

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Well, I think it's important to remember that we have things that Gideon didn't have. So we have the completed Bible, so we have the full story, right? Gideon's not there, obviously. He's in the Old Testament, he doesn't even have there's not even Jesus yet. So much changes with the New Testament. You said the other day that you don't know if you would do another Bible in a year, but you're gonna keep going at this point because you're so close to the New Testament, and if things really do lighten up for everybody when we get to the New Testament. Gideon didn't have the Holy Spirit dwelling within other believers, wise Christian counsel, people that you can talk to, prayer even, right? The peace that comes from walking in obedience rather than having every detail guaranteed. Gideon in the Bible, there's just a lot still happening to fulfill the whole story. But we have so much more, I think, than where Gideon was. And so it was easy for him to really not trust what was happening. But we know the truth of God already, and that's so I think that's why it's important for us to be the ones that are spreading it.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Even like I said, even if it's just in our own little circles, and a circle to remember is just your own family. So well said. Great. You want to end in a prayer? Yeah. Okay. Dear God, thank you for always being faithful. Help us to trust you even when we don't have all the answers. Give us wisdom to follow your leading, courage to take the next step in faith, and peace that comes from knowing you are with us. In Jesus' name. Amen.