One way of understanding Gideon's story in Judges 6-8 is through a cycle.
There is a pattern throughout the book of Judges that indicates the Israelites moved through a cycle of committing evil, being turned over to a foreign nation by God, as punishment for their evil, being oppressed and crying out because of the oppression, being rescued by God through a deliverer (a judge), being at peace while the deliverer was living, and finally reverting back to evil after the deliverer dies, thereby starting the cycle all over again.
Gideon exists within this cycle and is a deliverer raised up by God. (We may, of course, question whether he was a good deliverer or not.)
His story also takes place in the context of a cycle. Gideon is called by God (6:1-12) but tests God because he is fearful (6:13-24). He then serves God (because God "passed" the test; 6:25-32) but falls back into fear and tests God again (6:33-40). He overcomes his fear (7:1-15), serves God and receives victory (7:15-25) but falls back into sin because of his arrogance and self-sufficient ways (ch. 8).
He bounced back-and-forth between serving God and serving himself.
These two cycles in Judges indicate to us that we, too, can become trapped in a vicious cycle, going back-and-forth between serving God and serving ourselves. We need to watch ourselves and avoid temptation.
In Matthew 4:1-11, Jesus overcame temptation and served by God by maintaining his focus on God and worshiping him, referring to teaching from Deuteronomy to bolster his faith. We, too, should keep our spiritual eyes on Jesus and his teaching in the bible to keep strong in our faith to overcome the cycles of sin and faith in our lives.
What cycles do you identify in your life?
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