Ironic:

Life is full of irony--so abundant that I often, like a fish oblivious to the water in which it dwells, fail to recognize it.

At CBC we are working on a series about labor, Taking Jesus to Work, on Sunday evenings. This Sunday morning we'll work through one of the many narratives in the Bible that talk about what we can never accomplish no matter how hard we work.
The deliverance that God brought through Gideon in Judges 6 and 7 had nothing to do with pitcher-
holding skill or finesse with a torch. One of the clear tensions of scripture is that it promotes work, but also clearly teaches that what we need most must be accepted as a gift because we can never earn it.
That is part of the goodness of the Good News. We are driven to the end of our capability, then having arrived at the point where we see that we are helpless, God's limitless grace appears. Part of what God's grace does is enable us to serve Him with works never before possible.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." (Ephesians 2:8-10, NASB95)

It's STTA.