Text: Judges 6:1-40.
Do you often feel frustrated? In Judges, we see the frustration of Israel over the Midianites stealing their harvests and animals and leaving them impoverished.
What is frustration, and where does it come from?
1) Frustration comes from a dissatisfaction with the where, the what, and the how. For Israel, it is the latter two.
2) We can be frustrated with where we are in life, what's going on in our lives, and who we are with.
3) Frustration is us undergoing pressure without standing firm.
Special Note: The Hebrew mindset was if God did not stop a situation, He caused it. This is refuted in other areas of scripture. We also plainly see how the actions of people brought about unwanted consequences.
The angel of the Lord comes to Gideon while he is threshing grain inside a winepress and addresses him as, "mighty man of valor." This task was normally done outdoors where the wind could separate the wheat from the chaff. Gideon is indoors, afraid the Midianites will seize the grain if they see him. The "mighty man of valor" is hiding.
God often sees qualities in us that we don't know are there. Gideon did not display this characteristic. This causes frustration to rise up in Gideon. He changes what the Lord said to him just slightly, using the words, "us," in his response.
When frustration sets in, we feel:
1) Powerless
2) Confused
3) Unjustly treated
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