Judges 6:13 And Gideon said unto him, Oh, my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? And where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.
The Midianites came against Israel, oppressed them, and ravaged the land. In their misery and oppression, the people cried unto the Lord in a prayer of distress. The Lord responded by sending the angel of the Lord to Gideon, calling him to be the next Deliverer. The Angel of the Lord was probably the pre-incarnate Son of God. The first response of Gideon to the Lord’s appearance was to complain instead of trusting and being thankful. Why did God let this happen? Where is the God of miracles when you need Him?
Gideon, like all sinners, should have been overcome and overjoyed at the Presence of God, but instead reacted with complaints about God. Complaining comes from unbelief, not that God isn’t real, but that God is not good. We are like Gideon and like Job, asking, Why do bad things happen to good people? Truth is, we are deflecting blame and putting it in God. We don’t want to hear the true answer: it is Sin. It’s my fault: “I repent in dust and ashes.” God asks Job in Job 40:8: “Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?” Job was convicted and penitent.
Though we ask “Why?” We don’t honestly want to hear the answer. Our proper response to “bad things” is: repent and believe the gospel. In Gideon’s case, the Lord convinced him that He was really a good God, and He would use him to deliver His people. So also, in spite of our natural unbelief, God sends His Son to be our Deliverer.