That night the LORD said to him, “Take your father’s bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it . . .” Judges 6:25
Long before I wrote Freedom in the Fight, I wrote another book. You don’t know it (no one does) because it’s never been published. It was a Christian book that worked through some conflicts with which I was wrestling years ago. I wanted to write a book, and I genuinely thought I had some good ideas, but unfortunately, I was struggling with my drug addiction on and off at the time. I didn’t know it back then, but for me to publish a book on the Christian life, I was going to have to clean up my own life first. Frankly, I had no business writing that first book, pretending to know anything about faith, while I was enslaved to my pills. When I did eventually find recovery, I got to write a book, but it was a vastly different book than I originally intended. I had my plans, but first, God insisted I follow him, allowing him to write my story. And I’m far better off for it.
Gideon found himself in a somewhat similar situation in today’s passage. In the story, God called Gideon to deliver Israel from the Midianites. Once Gideon wrapped his head around this idea, I bet he imagined a great military victory over Israel’s oppressors. Maybe he even started planning the campaign. Before driving the Midianites out of Israel though, God commanded Gideon to first clean up his own house. Tear down your Father’s altar of Baal (my paraphrase). Before God’s people could address the problem of Midian, they had to address the problem of their own sin and idol worship. Gideon likely had great plans for dealing with the Midianite problem, but first, God made him clean up his own family’s mess.
I think many of us have found ourselves here. We believe in God and our faith inspires us to seek transformation . . . for others. You’re not living like God wants you to live. Faith can easily become a weapon, which we point at those around us, telling them how to live while our own personal lives are a mess. It’s always a great distraction from our own failures to attack some external enemy who’s worse than we are. I’m not saying that we must be perfect before we can do anything for God, but it’s profoundly hypocritical of us, as Christians, to point anyone else to God, while we fail to follow him ourselves.