He had had no military training. He was just a country boy who threshed wheat in a winepress. Behold my family is poor in Manasseh and I am the least in my father's house. When you start feeling like that, the Lord can do something for you and He can do something with you. All spiritual greatness is built upon a foundation of humility.
Life is built upon death.
You have never yet discovered how to live unless you first know how to die. The man who is most alive is really the man who is most dead. He is dead to self and alive to God. The trouble with so many of these live wire preachers is that you get a terrific shock if you get close enough to touch them. So God had Gideon in university training for the ministry when he was sitting under the old oak tree feeling like he was 100 per cent less than nothing at all.