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In Judges chapter six, there is a young man named Gideon who is the least of the least. For seven years, raiders from the land of Midian invaded Israel at harvest time, set up camps, and systematically stole their crops and livestock, destroying and pillaging anything of value. The raiders came like locusts, and their numbers were so vast that they could not be counted. The Israelites were humiliated and had to hide in caves while their crops were looted.

One day, Gideon was threshing wheat inside a winepress to hide it from the raiders when an Angel of the Lord appeared, which was probably an Old Testament appearance of Jesus Christ. For during their conversation, it reads, "the Lord turned to him," "the Lord said to him," and "I will be with you" (Judges 6:14-16).

The Lord told Gideon to go in the strength he had and save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Notice that the Lord was not offering to give Gideon anything new... There was no new superpower. Instead, the Lord wanted Gideon to get started with what he already had.

Gideon asked for a sign that it was the Lord and brought out some food for Him. The Angel touched it with the tip of His staff, fire came up from the rock and consumed the food, and the Angel vanished. Then something interesting happens:

(Judges 6:20-23 NKJV) The Angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth." And he did so. Then the Angel of the LORD put out the end of the staff that was in His hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And the Angel of the LORD departed out of his sight. Now Gideon perceived that He was the Angel of the LORD. So Gideon said, "Alas, O Lord GOD! For I have seen the Angel of the LORD face to face." Then the LORD said to him, "Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die."

Did you catch that? The Angel vanished, yet the Lord continued to speak to him. So, Gideon was now hearing the Lord speak. When the Lord first spoke to Gideon, his next thought was probably: "You are making that up. That is your imagination."

Later that night, the Lord spoke to Gideon again and told him to tear down his father's altar to baal and build one to the Lord on that spot. So Gideon tore down the altar to baal and worked that night on building a new one for the Lord. The following morning, the entire town was searching for the person responsible. When they found out that it was Gideon, they wanted to kill him, but his father, who owned the property and was an important man in the village, intervened.

The Lord told Gideon to go in the strength he had and save Israel from the Midianites, but Gideon was afraid because even the people of his own town wanted to kill him. He wanted to know for certain that it was the Lord speaking to him, so he asked for a sign using a fleece:

(Judges 6:36-38 NKJV) So Gideon said to God, "If You will save Israel by my hand as You have said—look, I shall put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that You will save Israel by my hand, as You have said." And it was so. When he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece together, he wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowlful of water.

So Gideon placed a fleece on the ground and asked the Lord to let the fleece be wet and the ground dry. When he woke up, it was. Then Gideon reversed his test and asked for the fleece to be dry and the ground wet the following morning, and it was. Even though the first fleece test was successful, Gideon wanted a second test to confirm the first one.

(Judges 6:39-40 NKJV) Then Gideon said to God, "Do not be angry with me, but let me speak just once more: Let me test, I pray, just once more with the fleece; let it now be dry only on the fleece, but on all the ground let there be dew." And God did so that night. It was dry on the fleece only, but there was dew on all the ground.

When you hear from the Lord, it is normal for the next thought to be like Gideon's: one of doubt. Jesus told us that when the word is sown, the enemy comes immediately to snatch it away (Matthew 13:19). Gideon asked the Lord for confirmation, and then he used a fleece as a test. Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice" (John 10:27), and that His sheep know Him and would not follow a stranger (John 10:5). So, over time, you will learn to tell the difference.

In my own life, these fleece-type confirmations worked when I truly needed direction and really didn't know if it was the Lord speaking to me or not. Then, after I came to know Him better, they gradually worked less and less, and it required more faith and more trust. He gradually weaned me off the need for seven confirmations before I believed it was Him. "You know what I said!"

The Lord knows what you know, and He can see our hearts. When I am completely stalled, He may give me a sign to encourage me to take the next step, but it's rarer these days. After you have walked with Him for a while, it becomes "signs following" and not "signs leading." We don't follow the signs. The signs should follow us.

When we began Refreshing Hope, it started with a daily devotional email that I was afraid to write. Yet, these words would come to me, and I would write them and send them out. People would write back and say that they could feel the Lord speaking directly to them about something in their lives. Some were in tears. There was something new, something fresh. They could feel the love of the Lord. Eventually, Sylvia and I found ourselves sometimes answering 200 to 300 emails each per day.

It certainly wasn't me. Like Gideon, I was the least of the least—the youngest step-child in a family of thirteen. My stepmom would put my brother and me in the yard and lock the door while they had breakfast. Yet, the Lord's strength shines in our weakness.

The Lord gave me a vivid dream where He took Sylvia and me to a seven-acre field that was overgrown with weeds as high as our heads. He explained that He really needed the harvest from this field. This crop was unique and could only be grown in this specific location, but it was being neglected. He said that if we worked the field for Him, He would provide everything that we needed along the way. We said, sure! Soon, we were in ministry on the Internet.

Along this time, the Lord impressed on me Ezekiel 34, where His sheep were scattered. The shepherds were eating the fat but not feeding His sheep. His sheep were lost and scattered because there was no shepherd (Ezekiel 34:3–5). So, the Lord said that He would search for them:

(Ezekiel 34:11 NKJV) For thus says the Lord GOD: "Indeed I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out."

I printed this chapter out, highlighted some things, and thumbtacked it to the wall beside my desk. The following morning, it had fallen and landed in my chair. After this happened twice, I knew He wanted my attention. We found that a large number of our audience didn't have a church or were disabled or homebound. Many were isolated and alone. Others suffered from church abuse or had fallen through the cracks. No one was searching for these. The Lord began finding them right where they were. Some wrote to us and swore they hadn't signed up for the devotional but could feel the Lord speaking to them through it.

One man wrote us that, at one point, he was about to take his own life. He had been in a motorcycle accident and broken his back. He was separated from his wife and family. As he was holding a bottle of pain pills he planned on taking, he heard his computer ding when a new email came in, and he stopped to read it. It was our devotional, and it put him in tears because he knew it was the Lord speaking directly to him, giving him hope. Each day, when the devotional came, the Lord gave him enough hope to continue. He wrote to us later and said that it was as if we had a microphone in his house during that time, as each day, the devotional addressed something he was going through at the time. The last I heard, he was doing better and was reconciling with his family.

All these people were connected to us through the devotional, but the Lord gave us a vision of connecting them together. During our background in technology, we designed and built a hundred websites for others. So, let's build one for the Lord! A safe, spirit-filled corner of the Internet for His people to meet and encourage each other. Let's refresh each other's hope.

We felt the Lord giving us a vision to start an Internet Church here at Refreshing Hope. We sat down together on the couch and calculated that it would cost us $2,500 to get started if we used some of the old equipment we had left from our computer business. At that time, RHM was a relatively new ministry, and Sylvia and I were among the few supporters. That was about all we had, but we prayed and felt it was what He wanted us to do.

So, I pulled an old Dell server out of the closet and began formatting it on our kitchen table. Within thirty minutes, someone visited our website and donated exactly $2,500. We had not informed anyone about our plans or needs. This was signs following obedience, not obedience following a sign. His provision began to flow when we began to follow His vision.

Also, the one who had made the $2,500 donation wrote to us several years later. They had been going through a season where their business was failing, and things were looking bad. They had prayed for the Lord to help them find Him more, to lead them to a website where they could know Him better each day. They typed in something, and "Refreshing Hope" came up, so they signed up to receive the devotional. Soon, the Lord impressed on them:

(Malachi 3:10 NKJV) "Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this," Says the LORD of hosts, "If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it."

So, that morning, in near tears, they decided to try Him and donated $2,500 while I was busy preparing the web server for the new Refreshing Hope Internet Church. The following week, they received a surprise in the form of a cashier's check for $168,000. Again, it was signs following obedience, not obedience following a sign. The Lord's provision began when they began to follow the vision.

We help children learn to walk, but after they learn how, they walk on their own. As we build a relationship with God and take on the mind of Christ, we begin to recognize when it is the Lord speaking to us. The Lord wants us to learn to trust Him and not be paralyzed waiting on a sign from heaven. We may not need seven confirmations to get started. Perhaps we just need to trust Him a little more and, like Gideon, start with the strength we have.

Do not be surprised if you pray and the Lord speaks to you in some way. When He does, you may immediately think, "You're making that up!" We have all been there, but somewhere deep inside you, you will know that it is Him. Learn to trust God. If you miss Him, He will find you. If you fall, He will catch you. His Spirit lives inside of us, and hearing the Lord speak to you is easier than you think.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, I thank You so much for all that You have done for me. I pray that You teach me to hear Your voice better, to recognize when You are speaking, and to protect me from deception. I desire a deeper, more meaningful relationship with You today. Draw me close to You, Lord; in the name of Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen!