Advent 2021 – The Jesse Tree: Anxious?

This is a series of reflections on daily readings designed for families during the season of Advent.  

It was three in the morning and I was up emailing Harriet.  My book was due to come out in a few weeks and Harriet had offered to share the reader’s copy around the highly networked and well-known ministry where she worked.  It seemed like an ideal opportunity to connect a timely resource to a community that could use it.  

The only problem was that Harriet had stopped responding to my emails / messages.  Like an anxious father I’d been up for hours thinking, planning, pacing.  Did she hate it? Was it something I said?  Perhaps my message came across too strong?  

A short time afterwards Harriet’s well-known ministry was in the throes of public scandal.  It hasn’t recovered.  Still, it’s worth asking why I was so anxious.  

Day Twelve – Anxious: Judges 6 - 8

The story of Gideon is a troubling but insightful story of the anxious cycle so familiar to those of us who lose sleep over difficult decisions, second guess our actions, or just worry.  Gideon, whose name means, one who cuts down, and who is later described as tall and striking in appearance / manner, is introduced as a man in hiding.  He’s threshing out wheat in a winepress in hopes that no one sees him and takes his family’s grain away.  

After being called by God to deliver Israel from foreign occupation, Gideon asks for three distinct signs, his famous signs with a wool fleece, as confirmation that God really has called him.  Even after three signs, Gideon still sneaks into the enemy camp to eavesdrop on a conversation so that he can be really sure God will grant him victory.  

Recently my friend Jared spoke to a group of entrepreneurs in New York City.  “I believe,” he said, “that a community of entrepreneurial women and men who are secure in God’s love for them will be more fruitful than a community who have something to prove.”  This is a radical thesis.  One of the investors in the forum shared with me afterward, “As an investor I’m always looking for the entrepreneur with something to prove.  I’m interested in that hustle.”  

When we consider the story of Gideon Jared’s insight seems to have some validity.  The high points of Gideon’s story are those moments Gideon acts in faith, trusting in God’s promise.  We see this when, for example, Gideon cuts down the Asherah pole, reduces the number of his army to a few hundred, and refuses to rule over his fellow Israelites.  Gideon is at his worst when he is anxious, reactive, vain, and vindictive.  

I’m a bit like Gideon, at my best when my trust is high and I’m not worried about whether I’m enough, there’s enough, or it will be enough.Perhaps Gideon’s story is a reminder to anxious hearts that another way is possible.