Needing A Word From God?

When life gets tight and your prayers feel like they hit the ceiling, the simplest sentence can carry the most weight: “I need a word from God.” If you’ve ever felt that mix of exhaustion, frustration, and quiet fear, you’re in good company. I walk through a moment from my upbringing where that phrase showed up in hard times, then we follow the same heartbeat straight into Scripture.

We step into Judges 6 and meet Gideon, not on a stage, but hiding in a wine press just trying to protect what little he has. When God calls him a mighty hero, Gideon pushes back with the question many of us are afraid to say out loud: If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened, and where are the miracles? We talk about spiritual disappointment, waiting fatigue, and what it feels like when you’re doing everything you know to do and nothing seems to change.

Then comes the turning point: God doesn’t give Gideon a full explanation, He gives him a next step and a promise of presence. “Go with the strength you have… I am sending you.” We connect that to Paul’s thorn in the flesh and God’s steady answer for overwhelmed people everywhere: “My grace is sufficient for you.” If you’re navigating uncertainty, constant changes, and new pressures from strange places, this is your reminder that God is with you today, and you can take the next faithful step.

Transcript

Welcome And The Daily Reset

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Good morning and welcome to Starting Right. I am Danny Mack, and I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back and relax for the next five

When You Need A Word

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minutes as I help you start your day by starting right. I grew up in a small town about 60 miles east of Vancouver, and I went to a small church. And in that church, when people were going through difficult times and things were tight and things were stressful, there's a phrase that I remember coming up more than once. And it was the phrase that said, I need a word. I need a word from God. Now I know there's some people that don't understand that and may not appreciate that phrase very much, because you know we've got the written word of God, we have the Bible to teach us and help us, we have people around us to encourage us with it, and we've got the Holy Spirit within us to be able to stir up the truth within us. But whether or not you understand and can appreciate the phrase, I believe you can understand and appreciate the sentiment. When you're going through times of tremendous stress and trial and struggle, and you don't see an end coming to it, you need something to stir you and give you hope again. We just want to hear something

Gideon’s Crisis In Judges 6

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from God. We know that if God could speak to us, we would be okay. It's easy for it to seem like God is silent. I want to talk just a couple of minutes this morning about a fellow by the name of Gideon. I know that most of you know Gideon, but let me just tell a little bit of his story to help remind us of where he was at and what he was going through. The story of Gideon we're going to look at begins back in the book of Judges in the sixth chapter. So let me read just bits and pieces out of this chapter to help guide us through. The setup for what's about to take place happens in verse one, and it tells us this The Israelites did evil in the Lord's sight, so the Lord handed them over to the Midianites for seven years. The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites made hiding places for themselves in the mountains and caves and strongholds. Whenever the Israelites planted crops, marauders from Midian, Amalek, and the people of the east would attack Israel, camping in the land and destroying crops as far away as Gaza. They left the Israelites with nothing. Verse eleven The angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the great tree of Ophra, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiazer. Gideon, son

Why Has God Let This Happen

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of Joash, was threshing wheat at the bottom of a wine press to hide the grain from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, Mighty hero, the Lord is with you. And here's where we need to catch Gideon's response in verse thirteen. Sir, Gideon replied, If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn't they say the Lord brought us up out of Egypt? But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites. In that response to Gideon, we see how frustrated he's become. God has not been answering my prayer. Where are all the miracles we heard about of God? Where's the power of God? How come this is still going on the way it is? Why is this still happening to us? Why hasn't he answered us and gotten us out of this? Where is God? I'm tired. Don't go telling me I'm a mighty man of valor by God. Don't go telling me about that. What I need to see and what I need to know is that God is real and that God's got an answer, but he hasn't shown himself to us for a long time. And Gideon said, But the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.

Go With The Strength You Have

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Then verse 14, the Lord turned to him and said, Go with the strength you have and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you. Go with the strength you have. Sometimes when we think we're needing a word from God, the word is you've got the strength within you, you can do it. In the New Testament, we have the same thing. When Paul cried out to God and said, Lord, remove this thorn in my flesh, and God said, My grace is sufficient for you. I am with you, you can do this. So this morning, my friends, my encouragement for you is this if you are feeling that you need a word from God, if you're feeling frustrated because you haven't seen or heard God move or work or act on your behalf, maybe you're even questioning about whether or not God even cares about you right now. God is with you just as he was with Gideon and just as he was with Paul. God was assuring them that he had not forsaken them, he had not forgotten them, and that he was with them. He told Gideon, Go for I am with you. He told Paul, My grace is sufficient for you. And those words are for us this morning too. As we go into this new week where we are still adapting to uncertainty, changes happening almost daily around us, and new pressures arriving out of the strangest

Grace For A New Week

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places. God is with you, and his grace is sufficient for you. Be strong, for each one of you is a mighty hero, and the Lord is with you. Have a great day, my friends. We'll talk tomorrow. Thank you for listening today. And I invite you to join me Monday to Friday right here on Starting Right with Danny Mack.