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Scripture
Then Gideon asked [the two kings], “The men you killed…what were they like?” “Like you,” they replied. “They all had the look of a king’s son.” Judges 8:18

Observation
If you were to put all of the heroes of the book of Judges in a lineup, who would you pick as the most likely to be elected king by the people? Would eyes fix on Samson and his biceps? How about Samuel and his insight? Surprisingly the one judge most likely to become king was Gideon the scardeycat. The people mobbed him and offered him a throne. It was a good thing that Gideon declined because he was a one percent short leader. Two kings flattered Gideon and said that had the “look of a king’s son” but he was no king.

What kind of leader almost makes it, but does not quite get there? It is the leader who is 99% pure, but there is just a little something that contaminates his leadership. These are just trace elements that few would notice. But God notices and disqualifies that man from leading.

What was Gideon lacking in his missing 1%?

For starters, he looked like a king but he acted like a terrorist. Those who did not support his cause, he thrashed with thorns, pulled down their public buildings and killed their menfolk. Compare that with King David a few decades later just before he became king. When 200 men would not fight with him, he left them beside the road, went on, fought the battle and then let them share in the spoils when he returned. Gideon didn’t have the magnanimous heart of a true king.

Gideon looked like a king, but he could not clean up his own villains. Two enemy kings needed to be dealt with, but Gideon turned to his boy to do a man’s job. Gideon was a coward who recoiled from dirty jobs. A king is a king because he alone will do what a king must do. A leader must deal with his own issues. Some things a leader cannot delegate and still remain a leader. A true leader deals with his own villains.

Lost of all, Gideon looked like a king, but he was greedy with the public purse. He should have left the gold alone, but instead Gideon asked for a small thing…just an earring from each man. Behind that small corruption was a fear that he would have nothing for the years ahead. Gideon was not a king, therefore, he had no right to taxation. But he taxed the people, and so cursed his future and that of his sons. Greed need not be large. Even the desire for daily financial survival can be greed if there is no trust in God to supply.

What was the crack that let this impurity seep into Gideon’s soul? The door ajar was Gideon’s pride. Gideon looked fearful, but his real issue was pride. He was a self-made man, and for that reason he never felt big enough to get the job done. That fear led to pride to puff himself up bigger than he really was. The fear did not mutate into pride until after the victory was won.

Application
How then can a leader lead if he is one percent short? Most leaders know that in fact they fall far more short of capability than just one percent. We all have many insecurities, especially leaders. The answer is in something we can call not self-confidence but Christ-confidence.

Christ-confidence begins when a leader refuses to pretend to be what he is not, but instead becomes comfortable with honesty about his shortcomings in the presence of God. When a leader is honest with his fears, he is set free with pretending. He is set free to find a new depth of confidence in Christ. The Lord has chosen each of us knowing our inadequacies with x-ray perception. We are inadequate, and yet he chose each of us imperfect as we are. He chose us one percent (or more) short to give himself room to reveal himself through our imperfections.

All leaders fall short in some way. What makes the difference between the good leaders and the bad ones is what they do with their insecurities. Wayne Cordeiro leads a church of 14,000, speaks at the Willow Creek Summit and is a sought after mentor and speaker. I spent seven years with him, close enough to see unguarded moments. I remember in one difficult season, Wayne sat in an ordinary kitchen chair and pressed his confused head against the wall and said, “Phil, I cannot always lead with confidence, so I will serve with confidence.” That is the mark of an effective leader who knows how to handle the missing one percent.

Prayer
Father, even if my life were True Gold at 99.9%, I would still be one tenth of one percent short. There is still much dross in me. Yet you chose me knowing all that is in me, even what I don’t know about myself. So here are my inadequacies. Glorify yourself through them. Help me to brush past those who would want me to lead based on self-confidence. Instead, help me to serve out of confidence in Christ. I don’t want to depend on the “look” of a leader; I want to depend on the Lord. Amen.

Scripture
“But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Luke 18:13-14

Observation
My dad was a university professor with tons of experience watching students. He told me before my first college class, “Don’t sit in the back row where the students talk. Sit at the front so you can listen.” He was right. Front rows have been a life habit of mine. But Jesus tells me something different today. There are times it pleases God to sit in the back.

The tax collector “stood at a distance” and was closest to God. He, and not the preacher on the front row, was the example to follow.

Application
I wonder how often I walk into church with a sense that I belong there. I grew up in the church. My dad was a pastor. I’m a pastor. It’s all very familiar, maybe too familiar. What would happen if I stopped at the back and pondered my inadequacy.

In the Parliaments of the British Commonwealth there is at the entry doors a bar placed across the open doorway. In the Queensland State Parliament, where I lived in Brisbane, there is a golden bar across the doorway. Visitors are called “strangers” and if a non-member of parliament is invited to speak he maybe asked to stand behind the bar and address parliament at a distance.

Maybe we need to put a bar across the doorway, not of church, but across the threshold of every life entry. When we walk into the office, or the boardroom, or the classroom, or the restaurant or even our own homes, it would be good if we paused and reflected on our unworthiness and Christ’s full sufficiency. Everything is better than we deserve. That is the nature of mercy. That hesitation to pause to acknowledge our sinfulness and need of a Saviour could make all of the difference.

Prayer
Father, the only ticket of entrance I have into heaven or your presence is my confession that I am a sinful person. Have mercy on me. And let me seek that mercy at every entry point of life, for I am unworthy of it all. Everything is better than I deserve. Amen.

One of my “necktie” moments…when I was best man for both of my foster sons Jon and Nelson.

Scripture

This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and buy a linen loincloth and put it on, but do not wash it.” So I bought the loincloth as the Lord directed me, and I put it on. Then the Lord gave me another message: “Take the linen loincloth you are wearing, and go to the Euphrates River. Hide it there in a hole in the rocks.” So I went and hid it by the Euphrates as the Lord had instructed me. A long time afterward the Lord said to me, “Go back to the Euphrates and get the loincloth I told you to hide there.” So I went to the Euphrates and dug it out of the hole where I had hidden it. But now it was rotting and falling apart. The loincloth was good for nothing. Then I received this message from the Lord: “This is what the Lord says: This shows how I will rot away the pride of Judah and Jerusalem. As a loincloth clings to a man’s waist, so I created Judah and Israel to cling to me, says the Lord. They were to be my people, my pride, my glory—an honor to my name. But they would not listen to me.

Observation

Jeremiah took a 1,320 mile round trip journey to the Euphrates River to bury a neck tie in the mud and then to return to find it rotten. That was nearly 3 months of travel just to learn that things left beside the riverbank rot. But like most mysteries in the Bible, if we ponder them long enough there is usually a deeper reason.

Okay, first of all, why did I call the strip of fabric a neck tie when the Bible calls it a belt? Because in Jeremiah’s day a man spent as much time picking out his belt in the morning as a man today does choosing which tie to wear. Belts were made of brightly colored fabric imported from distant places to make a power statement about a man’s place in the world. Just like the psychology of the silk tie, so too men were selective in how wide and how bright their belt would be for that day. The men of Jeremiah’s day were a dressing for success. Their world was a rotten heap, but they were scrambling for the top anyway.

Okay, that explains the belt, but why this trekking to the Euphrates? That was a 330 mile trip from Jerusalem where Jeremiah lived. Three hundred miles in his day was like a transoceanic flight in our time. Jeremiah made the trip not just once but twice. Why would God ask such a thing?

I think of it something like the test trials in a modern factory. Machines wear out car seats, blue jeans and blenders to test how long the product will last. Within a week a test machine can simulate years of use. Jeremiah’s trips were like time lapse photography of a man’s life. Within a few years what was once store window display became back alley garbage can refuse. Such is a man’s pride in life. What a man thinks of himself and what others think of him will one day be worn out like rotten fabric.

Okay, that explains the trip, but why the Euphrates? Simple: that was the direction the armies of Babylon would march from. What seemed so secure today would be gone tomorrow. Babylon would accelerate the process of the disintegration of pride. There is no place in life so secure that a man cannot fall. What seems bright today may be gone tomorrow.

So what’s the point of the passage? We are to cling to the Lord like a belt around the waist or a tie around the neck. Our only pride comes not from whom we are but who the Lord is. Our glory endures only so long as it is connected with his. Once we are out of his hand our glory will rot away.

Application

So what’s the point of the passage for me? There is only one glory I can have, and that is my attachment to Jesus. There are so many ways we try to impress others, especially when we meet strangers. In unfamiliar ground in business out come the neckties. With a strip of $50 cloth a man tries to make a statement about himself. But what matters most is what that cloth is bound to. If it is just to the man himself, it is a noose. But if it is to the Lord it is a conduit of spiritual authority.

Prayer

Father, there are times I need a time lapse view of my days. What seems so important today will be insignificant tomorrow. I was taken to the back corridors of a cathedral in Australia where ragged, rotted flags were hanging. I was told that these were the retired battle standards of battalions. According to tradition they would hang in the cathedral in the presence of the Lord until they disintegrated. Perhaps that is a symbol of my own life. My glory means nothing, only your presence. And if my life is left out to dry, let it be in your presence where at least your glory can cover over the decay of my existence. Amen