’Why then has all this happened to us?’

The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, ‘The LORD is with you, O valiant warrior.’  Then Gideon said to him, ‘O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us?  And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?'  But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian’” (Judges 6:12-13).

When we are going through had time in our lives, there is a thing that makes us harder.  And it is a word from our beloved one.  For example, when a woman is having a hard time, let’s say her husband comes up to her without really knowing what she is going through and says, ‘Well, it will okay.  It’s not a big deal’, how will she feel?  I am sure what he said will make her more difficult.  Rather than trying to sympathize with her and trying to be in her shoe, if the husband spits out a word too quick without that much thinking, then her heart will be harder and very difficult.  Although it’s hard for her not getting any comfort from her husband, much harder think for her is that she cannot understand why her beloved God makes her to go through difficulties in her life.  No matter how she thinks about it, if she cannot understand why God has given her such difficulties then she may go through much deeper pain and hardship.  Why are hard and painful things happening to us?  Why is all this hard work happening to us?

In Judges 6:12-13, when the angel of the Lord said to Gideon “valiant warrior” (v. 12), Gideon said to the angel “O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us?” (v. 13)  If we try to stand in Gideon’s perspective, we can understand why Gideon answered the God's angel like that.  In Gideon’s perspective, he couldn’t understand that if God was with the Israelites, then why the Israelites had to make the dens, the caves and the strongholds for themselves because of the Midianites (v. 2).  If God was with him and his people, the Israelites, then he didn’t understand why the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern people invaded the country and ruined their crops all the way to Gaza and didn’t spare a living thing for Israel? (vv. 3-4)  In Gideon's perspective, he couldn’t understand that if God was with the Israelites, why Israel was brought low because of Midian (v. 6).   So the Israelites cried out to God (v. 6).  They cried out to God because of the Midianites (v.7).  Then God sent a prophet to the Israelites, and he said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'It was I who brought you up from Egypt and brought you out from the house of slavery.  'I delivered you from the hands of the Egyptians and from the hands of all your oppressors, and dispossessed them before you and gave you their land, and I said to you, "I am the LORD your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live.  But you have not obeyed Me” (vv. 8-10).  Why did God say this to the Israelites?  Maybe God was telling the Israelites why all this happened (v. 13).  Maybe God was saying to them all this happened to them because they disobeyed God like their ancestors during the Exodus time who disobeyed God’s command “you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live” (v. 10).  Gideon didn’t know that the Lord gave the Israelites into the hands of Midian 7 years because the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord (v. 1).  That was why he asked the angel of the Lord, “O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us?” (v. 13)  Then he asked the angel of the Lord, “And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?” (v. 13)  Gideon still didn’t know that the Lord gave the Israelites into the hands of Midian 7 years because the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord (v. 1).  Without knowing the Israelites’ sins and repent their sins, Gideon asked the angel of the Lord where all His miracles which their fathers told them about during the time of God delivering them out of Egypt when the he and the Israelites were going through the consequence of their sins.  So Gideon thought that the Lord had abandoned them and given them into the hand of Midian (v. 13).  He thought that God abandoned them because he believed God wasn’t with Israel and God was not showing any miracles.  So he thought that Israel was going through all the suffering, adversity, and poverty by the Midianites (vv.  2-6).  Was this thought of Gideon God’s thought?

When I was meditating on this, the fact that God is with us, like the people of Israel, who kept sinning against God is God’s grace.  I don’t understand how holy God is with such sinners like us who keep sinning against God.  It is only by the merit of Jesus Christ on the cross.  Although we keep on disobeying God’s words as we compromise with this sinful world instead of living holy life, amazing God’s grace is that He is with us.  Another thought that came to my mind as I was meditating on this word is that when we sin against God repeatedly, God gives us into the hands of non-Christians so that we may be subjected to severe poverty and that is God’s love for us.  In other words, God makes us want because He loves us.  If we sin over and over again, but we still are in abundance, we will not seek God.  And if we do not seek God, we will repeatedly sin against God without realizing that we are sinning.  That is why being in need or even in severe poverty as a result of our unrepented sins, it is a good opportunity for us to cry out to God and to realize our sins through the Word of God.  In a word, it is the love of God who makes us realize our sins and makes us repent, that the righteous God causes us to suffer as a result of our sin.  One more thought in meditating on this word is that we can misunderstand that God has forsaken us.  But I completely believe that God never abandons us nor can He do so.  Although we are suffering poverty because of our sin, we are not aware of it.  Instead, we are complaining that God is not with us and that there is no miracle of God.  And in the end we say God has abandoned us.  We must believe that God is with us even in the midst of our suffering and we must seek God's forgiveness of our sins when we realize our sins, rather than seeking His miracles.  Also when God hands us over to non-Christians of this world and when we suffer, instead of thinking that God is abandoning us we must think about Jesus Christ who was forsaken by His own Father God.  As we do so, we must realize our sins are forgiven because of Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross and we became righteous because of His resurrection (Rom. 4:25).  We must be convicted that we cannot be separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord "(Rom. 8:39).  God can never forsake us (Deut. 31:6, Josh. 1:5, Ps. 94:14, Heb. 13:5).

We don’t know why all these hard things are happening to us even though God is with us.  Our intellect cannot comprehend why all these difficult things are happening to us so we cry out to God to deliver us from all our hardships.  Then, through the Word of God, God exposes our sins and makes us to look at Jesus.  God makes us to confess our sins by making us to trust in the merits of Jesus Christ who was died on the cross.  And God makes us realize that all these hard things have happened to us as a result of our unrepentant sins.  Not only that, God gives peace to us as He trains and strengthens us in the midst of we are going through all these difficult things.  And God delivers us from all these hardships in His way and in His time.  Therefore, we must praise this God of our salvation with faith and thanksgiving.