1. When I keep fighting life’s battle on my own terms, my message to God is, I’ll take it from here.

1. When I keep fighting life’s battle on my own terms, my message to God is, I’ll take it from here. 2. When I don’t feel helpless, I forget I still need help.

Judges 8:22 The Israelites said to Gideon, “Rule over us—you, your son and your grandson—because you have saved us from the hand of Midian.”

2. When I don’t feel helpless, I forget I still need help. 3. When I listen to my own press release, I just might hear it.

Judges 7:2 The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’

Judges 8:23-24 But Gideon told them, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The Lord will rule over you.” And he said, “I do have one request, that each of you give me an earring from your share of the plunder.” (It was the custom of the Ishmaelites to wear gold earrings.)

3. When I listen to my own press release, I just might hear it. 4. What happens when I am not willing to be king, but act like one?

Judges 8:25 They answered, “We’ll be glad to give them.” So they spread out a garment, and each of them threw a ring from his plunder onto it.

Judges 8:26 The weight of the gold rings he asked for came to seventeen hundred shekels, not counting the ornaments, the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian or the chains that were on their camels’ necks.

4. What happens when I am not willing to be king, but act like one? 5. It is hard to give God the glory I think I deserve.

Judges 8:27 Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town. All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.

5. It is hard to give God the glory I think I deserve. 6. I get stuck when I act on the feeling that says I need to be needed.

Judges 8:28-30 Thus Midian was subdued before the Israelites and did not raise its head again. During Gideon’s lifetime, the land had peace forty years. Jerub-Baal son of Joash went back home to live. He had seventy sons of his own, for he had many wives.

Judges 8:31-32 His concubine, who lived in Shechem, also bore him a son, whom he named Abimelek. Gideon son of Joash died at a good old age and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

6. I get stuck when I act on the feeling that says I need to be needed. 7. No matter what I say, I do what I value.

Judges 8:33-34 No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They set up Baal-Berith as their god and did not remember the Lord their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.

Judges 8:35 They also failed to show any loyalty to the family of Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) in spite of all the good things he had done for them.

7. No matter what I say, I do what I value. 8. If I don’t think my life can unravel spiritually, then it already has.

How do I keep from a sad ending? 1. Confront the compromise. 2. Find someone who will tell me my soul is in a snare.

How to Get Unstuck 2. Find someone who will tell me my soul is in a snare. 3. Make sure that my deserving heart is checked at the alter.

How to Get Unstuck 3. Make sure that my deserving heart is checked at the alter. 4. Make sure that my wheel has spokes that are connected.