One of the great truths of the Bible is that when God looks at us, He does not see us for what we presently are, but rather He sees what we will become by His Spirit working in our lives.
God is in the business of taking weak, insignificant people and transforming them into His image! And He always begins with where we are, He knows our every flaw and weakness, our every doubt and shortcomings and He doesn’t say, “If you get rid of all of these then I can use you.” Instead He comes to us in those very areas that are weak and inadequate and transforms by His strength. God loves us where we are but He loves us way too much to leave us that way!
One of the clearest examples of this in the Old Testament is to be found in the story of Gideon! God will prepare a country bumpkin named Gideon (hacker) and the name in Hebrew describes one who destroys his own stuff and Webster’s defines this as “one who is inexperienced and unqualified at what he does.”
I suggest to you that this name doesn’t conjure confidence as perhaps today we would call him Clumsy or Claude.
Then God said, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!” Oh don’t you love how the Lord sees us? Gideon didn’t look much like the Lord was with him and he didn’t act like he was a mighty man of valor. He is in a hole with a stick beating wheat, defeated, discouraged, a man full of doubts, not the typical picture of a hero. Gideon apparently has no idea that it’s the “Angel of the Lord” as He tells Gideon, “I know what you are, but I also know what you are going to become!”
So many people look at what people aren’t, our flaws and failings and they say, “Oh he isn’t this, she isn’t that!” Oh but the Lord is not ignorant of those things He looks beyond them and says, “Oh he/she is my mighty warrior because that is what I’ll transform them into.”
God is more than a visionary with regards towards us; He is also a God with infinite patience and sensitive love as He knows our frame as we shall see how God transforms Gideon into the mighty warrior.