* Gideon pray for me
“Arise; for the Lord hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian”
[Wait a minute guys, wait a minute!!! YOU THINK MY NAME IS TONY??? THE LEAST, LONELIEST PERSON, IN MY CLAN WHO WILL NEVER GET MARRIED, WHO WILL BE SINGLE, BROKE AND LONELY FOREVER???!!! No. I tell you I am Gideon. MIGHTY WARRIOR. I SHALL BE VICTORIOUS - I KNOW IT!!! #WOOOOO]
+-----Promises Of A Better Life Under The Oak Tree; Gideon/Tony's Thoughts After The Visitation of the Angel of the Lord
All my life I have found asylum
in flight, fleeing from and
abandoning any encouraging thought,
any intimation of victory, in favor
of melancholy, monotonously
milling about in winepresses
of the damned, in my heart mercifully
offering prayers for the pain to end,
but my whispers have been
as futile as blackened smoke rising
before the high altar of demons,
profane holocausts,
my conscience gored, the blood
of my despair gushing out
and trickling down the base slowly.
(The Eden of my naive
childhood ideals: now nothing
save a snake-bit fleeting
memory in an adulthood of pessimism).
I have/had been threshing,
threshing
all my ambition
like wheat under a secret moon of regret,
chilled callous air of a cold autumn night,
separating fine grains from coarse stalk,
florid fantasies from harsh realities
of rebuttal and scorn,
gleaning whatever I could to tuck away
a modicum of hope, for invariably
I just knew,
that Midian soldiers of misfortune
and paranoia were marching
towards me. Some silly girl,
whom I loved,
clad in cruel metal armor,
was about to tell me she didn’t want
me, a creditor in an iron chariot
was destined to crack a threatening whip
of a lower credit score
on my tender (already flayed) back, the
incessant (unanswered) ringing
on my cellphone like cavalry, like
hooves approaching. A physician bowman
in their ranks, Im sure,
was fated to relay news of ill health,
the whizzing of arrows
of expensive surgical procedures
hastening towards me, an army of
invading nightmares on foot flanking him,
sniffing for my wheat,
the animalistic drool of dogs,
pillaging all prospects of my prosperity,
trying to concuss my faith
with the blunt end of the spear.
But now, alone and wasting away
in crop fields of dissipating
time, I realize that even though
true happiness and joy have
hitherto been a ruddy and
insignificant youth,
least in the family of my ideas,
they have to rise up, an eventual defense
has to be made to emancipate my soul
from these years of oppression. So now
I console myself with
comforting apparitions- a peaceful,
satisfied and debt-free life,
a beautiful wife with kissing lips
like healing balm, revenge on
the abusive irrational Pagan fears that
have trussed me like a slave.
These new notions
have been like God paying me a visit
under an Oak in Ophrah with
massive wings outstretched,
reversing the course of a once doomed
destiny, to release a chosen
people in captivity. Encouragement now
encompasses me as the radiance
of an Angel with a golden harp of
optimism arming and prepping me for war.
“Stand up Tony,” he says. “Your wife is coming
to you, her love a sharp sword
of confidence in your hand, the joy
of the Lord a dagger fastened
to your thigh striking down all
your adversities, leaving none alive.”
I know now that
everything around me is about to change
since every emotion I have now is one
anticipation,
of a grand onslaught of Midian lies,
my dreams now are of 300 men
with torches burning beneath clay pots
thirsting for the blood of anything
associated with negativity.
When I get married, my wife,
gazing at me with enchanting eyes,
will rename me “Mighty Warrior,”
her face like the tip of a staff,
wood from heaven’s
tree of life, her smile burning up
meat and unleavened bread of past
sufferings set on a rock of
gloom. This new perspective
on life is for me, the very Face of God,
fire flaring from that rock, it is the white
holy smoke of better tomorrows
rising in my mind. Now I can smile since
my spirit is free to love and believe
the Words of Promise. Because of them
I just know, one day soon,
I’ll be a sovereign judge of Israel,
successful in any mental battle,
adjudicating all earthly philosophy
wisely and optimistically. The Hebrews
will freely reign. I just know it.
---Judges 6:7-24; 7:7-25
When the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian, he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land. I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.” The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.” The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.” Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.” And the Lord said, “I will wait until you return.” Gideon went inside, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak. The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And Gideon did so. Then the angel of the Lord touched the meat and the unleavened bread with the tip of the staff that was in his hand. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the Lord disappeared. When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he exclaimed, “Alas, Sovereign Lord! I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!” But the Lord said to him, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.” So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it The Lord Is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites; And the Lord said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand: and let all the other people go every man unto his place. So the people took victuals in their hand, and their trumpets: and he sent all the rest of Israel every man unto his tent, and retained those three hundred men: and the host of Midian was beneath him in the valley. And it came to pass the same night, that the Lord said unto him, Arise, get thee down unto the host; for I have delivered it into thine hand. But if thou fear to go down, go thou with Phurah thy servant down to the host: And thou shalt hear what they say; and afterward shall thine hands be strengthened to go down unto the host. Then went he down with Phurah his servant unto the outside of the armed men that were in the host. And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the sea side for multitude. And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along. And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host. And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof, that he worshipped, and returned into the host of Israel, and said, Arise; for the Lord hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian. And he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet in every man's hand, with empty pitchers, and lamps within the pitchers. And he said unto them, Look on me, and do likewise: and, behold, when I come to the outside of the camp, it shall be that, as I do, so shall ye do. When I blow with a trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on every side of all the camp, and say, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon. So Gideon, and the hundred men that were with him, came unto the outside of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch; and they had but newly set the watch: and they blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers that were in their hands. And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal: and they cried, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon. And they stood every man in his place round about the camp; and all the host ran, and cried, and fled. And the three hundred blew the trumpets, and the Lord set every man's sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host: and the host fled to Bethshittah in Zererath, and to the border of Abelmeholah, unto Tabbath. And the men of Israel gathered themselves together out of Naphtali, and out of Asher, and out of all Manasseh, and pursued after the Midianites. And Gideon sent messengers throughout all mount Ephraim, saying, come down against the Midianites, and take before them the waters unto Bethbarah and Jordan. Then all the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together, and took the waters unto Bethbarah and Jordan. And they took two princes of the Midianites, Oreb and Zeeb; and they slew Oreb upon the rock Oreb, and Zeeb they slew at the winepress of Zeeb, and pursued Midian, and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side Jordan.
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