“Whack, whack, whack”.

This was the sharp sound of big stick hitting a bag of wheat repeatedly again and again, as if it were a small drum keeping rhythm with the mourning sound of the summer breeze, gently blowing through the top windows of the dimly lit barn.

He stood up for a moment arching his back as he stretched himself, feeling his neck pop softly against the stiffness from kneeling and working all morning.

Turning to enter the old barn, he silently but quickly climbed up a rickety wooden ladder – made of two long tree branches with shorter pieces as rungs tied to them with a few strands of rope twine.

As he got to the top of the barn to look out the small open windows, he carefully moved around in the shadows to avoid being spotted from the distant bushes; bushes that surrounded the old barn like enemy soldiers waiting for a signal to attack.

After breathing a sigh of relief, he quickly climbed down the ladder to continue his work before the evening sun got too low in the sky to see.

All of a sudden, his eyes caught a glance of something in the corner.

His heart began racing so loudly that it seemed to drown out his thoughts, and helped to confuse his mind.

Was he seeing things? Was his mind playing tricks on him again? Had he been discovered? Was this the place where his life would end?

Panic began to creep upon his mind like dark shadows moving across the evening with the setting sun.

Then, he saw him.

With trembling lips, feet that felt they were rubber poles, and his body feeling like a huge lead anchor, he dropped to his knees in terror to await the dreaded fate that he somehow knew would come one day.

“Thump, thump, thump“.

He heard the sound of heavy footsteps coming in his direction as the stranger got closer and closer. His body now overcome with fear, slumped over motionless, almost as if it had a mind of its own and he was no longer its master.

The footsteps stopped, and he knew this stranger was standing over him; he could almost feel the weight of his shadow pressing on his back, but nothing
happened.

After what felt like hours, he finally summoned the strength to lift his head and look up at this stranger; after all, shouldn’t he see the man’s face that was sent
to take his life?

Then it happened…it caught him totally off guard.

The stranger’s voice broke the deafening silence with the most unusual words he’d ever imagined a trained assassin would say to his victims.

The stranger said, “Gideon, the Lord is with you mighty man of fearless courage; Go in this your might and you shall save Israel from the hand of Midian” (Judges 6:12b-14 Amplified Bible – added emphasis)

Looking up at this stranger’s face, Gideon’s fear suddenly vanished and he became disturbed and confused at what he heard.

“Are you nuts?” he cried.

“You obviously do not know me very well because you have no idea that my family is the poorest family in the entire clan – and I am the last person anyone ever considers for anything important in my father’s house.”

“Didn’t you notice that I was hiding in a wine-press behind an old barn threshing wheat when you found me?”

But the stranger seemed unmoved by Gideon’s words as though he knew something unusual about Gideon, which he himself was yet to find out.