I can totally relate to the life of Gideon

Here's my under-the-influence-of-generic-DayQuil version of Judges 6 and 7:

"Hi, mighty man of valor! I'm the Angel of the Lord! God is going to deliver Israel through you."

"Pffffft, whatever! I ain't no mighty nothin'! I'm the weakest person in the weakest clan of the entire nation of Israel. Just talking to me is scraping the bottom of the barrel conversationwise. And what the bleep is all that bleep you're bleeping telling me about God delivering Israel? God doesn't remember our suffering. He sees the extremely terrible oppression that our people are torturously living through, with the bully Midianites stealing our crops and our livestock and starving us to death. He sends us a prophet to remind us of how He bleeping delivered us from bleeping Egypt, but does He do anything to bleeping help us now? I mean, look at me! I'm threshing wheat in a bleeping winepress over here because I'm bleeping scared to death of bleeping starving to death!! How the bleep is God going to deliver us?"

"Uh, well, He kinda wanted to deliver Israel through you. When you talk, maybe the people around you smell bitterness, but I smell might."

"Um... wait. Did I just diss... uh..."

"No worries. Bring Me a sacrifice, and I'll confirm who you're really talking to."

"Oh, my gosh. It's taking me like an hour to prepare this offering to you. Aw, dang it! My shaking, nervous hands aren't really helping me, either. Uh... here You go, Sir."

"Thanks. I point My staff at your offering and gulp it up with a fire."

"Oh! It really is You! Please don't kill me, Sir!"

"No worries. Really, stop being afraid. You won't die, mighty man of valor."

"Oh. Wow. So, You're the Lord of Peace."

"Yeah, that's right. I'm the Lord. So, the first thing you gotta do is get rid of that idol that's in your dad's house."

"Yes, Sir, no problem. Since my dad and his servants scare the bleep out of me, I'll get rid of their orgy statue in the middle of the night so that they won't see me."

"OH, MY GOSH! What the bleep happened to our orgy statue?? Hey, Joash, what the bleep??"

"Leave my son Gideon alone. Why are you defending Baal? If he was such a mighty god, why didn't he defend himself? Hello. My son turned Baal's orgy statue into firewood. And now my little Jarub-baal is worshiping the real God."

"Hi, Lord, it's me again, Gideon. Uh... if that really was You that appeared to me the other night and burned up my sacrifice and told me that You'd deliver Israel through me, can You please confirm it by saturating this piece of fleece overnight?"

"No problem. In fact, I'll supersaturate it."

"Wow! An entire bowlful of dew. Uh... hi, Lord, it's me again, Gideon. Uh... if that was really You that appeared to me the other night and burned up my sacrifice and told me that You'd deliver Israel through me, and if it really was You that doused my fleece drippingly wet with dew, can You please confirm it by doing the complete opposite? Can You please make sure that all the dew overnight lands on the entire ground and completely misses the fleece?"

"You got it."

"Whoa! Dry as a rock. All right, so how do I do this whole saving Israel thing?"

"OK, so you see those 32,000 men that have rallied around you? Tell all the ones who are afraid that they can go home."

"Sure, Lord, no problem. I'm sure most of them will stay with me and help... uh... now there are only 10,000 men left. Now what, Lord?"

"OK, so when you and your men stop by the water to drink, some of the men will kneel down and drink water like civilized men."

"Got it. That sounds great, Lord."

"But the other men will stoop down and lap up the water like dogs."

"Cool. So, You want me to send the water-lappers home?"

"No, I want you to send the civilized men home. You're going to lead the army, right? So, the uncivilized water-lappers will follow you."

"Sigh. Very funny, Lord. Now what?"

"Now you have 300 men. You are a mighty man of valor. I will deliver Israel through you. Give each one of your 300 men a trumpet, a pitcher, and a torch."

"Wait. What about swords? How the bleep are we supposed to conquer the Midianites, Lord??"

"Just do what I say, and you'll be fine."

"Wow! Check it out! All I did was obey God and charge the enemy with my army, and He confused all the men in the army so that they turned their own swords on themselves! God is awesome!"

Then something funky happened in Judges 8. I'm not sure if maybe Gideon let his victory go to his head or if maybe he forgot that God was the One who empowered him or what. But he got all revengey with some of the people who wouldn't feed his army bread. And then at the very end of the war, the people were like, "Gideon, you're so groovy." And Gideon was like, "No! God is supposed to rule over you, not me... but, uh... since I'm so groovy, why don't you give me all your jewelry?" Then he melted it and made a priestly garment, and the Bible says that the people prostituted themselves with it, and it doesn't go into detail, and I guess that means that I'm not supposed to know the details, because it makes my ears blush just typing about it. But maybe Gideon had a little too much fun cutting down his dad's orgy statue and decided to make his own orgy whatever. And after Gideon lived a long life and then died, the Israelites went back to worshiping Baal all over again. But Gideon was human, and he was just as susceptible to temptation and all kinds of being-human crap just like I am. And I noticed something else that was interesting in Judges 8: that chapter doesn't seem to have any recorded conversation between Gideon and God. Perhaps Gideon lost his connection with God and powered through his war on his own strength. I don't want to lose my connection with God, either.