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.
Gideon was threshing wheat in humble, everyday work when the call came, and from that lowly labor God took him to make him an instrument for delivering Israel. The assurance that the Lord was with Israel drew from him grief over Midianite oppression, and he asked how such suffering could be if God were present. He asked where were all the miracles their fathers had told of when God brought Israel up from Egypt, and concluded that the Lord had forsaken them and delivered them into the power of Midian.
The oppression had left the people discouraged, with little confidence that God would act for them. Yet Gideon's lament itself showed longing for God and belief that the Lord could still work mightily. Their suffering had come because of their own evil and idolatry, which had brought this condition upon them. That course had caused God's protecting presence and strength to be withdrawn, so they could no longer prevail and were subjected to nations they might have subdued.
The distress grew from a long history in which Israel failed to complete the conquest and for generations was afflicted by the remaining idolatrous peoples. They mingled with them and learned their practices, intermarried with them, and served their idols to their ruin. They even sacrificed sons and daughters to evil spirits until the land was polluted with blood. They forsook the God of their fathers who brought them out of Egypt and guided them in the wilderness like a flock, and provoked Him with hilltop shrines and carved images, so that in wrath He rejected His inheritance, abandoned His dwelling at Shiloh, and gave His strength and glory into enemy hands.
God did not utterly abandon Israel, for a faithful remnant always remained true. After seven years of Midianite oppression the people heeded His reproof and confessed their sins, so He raised up a helper for them. From time to time He raised up faithful and valiant deliverers, though after each deliverer died the people returned to idols in a repeated cycle of backsliding and chastisement followed by confession and deliverance. The same question meets believers who face hardship while seeking to serve God. Trial does not mean God has abandoned them, for God leads them through trials to reveal hidden defects, give opportunity to correct them, and prepare their character for His work.