The tragic deal

Trusting God without a deal

First read Judges 11: 30-31, Judges 11: 32-34, Leviticus 5: 4-6.

The dramatic story of Jeftah could come straight out of a suspense novel. Jeftah grew up as the son of a prostitute and was cast out of Gilead by his half-brothers. Later, however, they needed his help when Israel was attacked by the Ammonites. Here Jeftah made a deal with them: if he won the battle against the Ammonites he would become the new leader of Gilead. Full of trust in God, he went into battle. God gave him the victory, there was a reconciliation between Gilead and Jeftah, and Gilead became the leader. This part of the story from the book of Judges has a happy ending; because Jeftah had God on his side, he was able to defeat his enemies.

Just like this story, our lives also continue after a "happy ending". As we read in the book of Judges, the Israelites were in trouble and had to go into battle again. Impressed by his first experience with God, Jeftah sets out full of trust in him. But when he gets into a dangerous situation, his trust grew weak and Jeftah became afraid. Just as he made a deal with people in the first situation, he decided to make a deal with God the second time and swore an oath to God. Jeftah won the second battle and was obliged to keep this oath.

This is a really compelling story, but how can we apply what Jeftah experienced then to our lives today? Surely we all know a situation when we started out full of trust in God, but then events caused us to be afraid or raised doubts in us. Oftentimes, we tend to safeguard ourselves by other means instead of continuing to trust God. Jeftah eventually based his confidence in his deal-making skills to feel more secure. Sometimes we may try to rely on our own skills and try to take control of the situation, or we may give up and allow ourselves to be distracted by other things. But it is precisely in these moments when it is important to come to God and trust Him, and not stray from His path. It doesn't matter how the battle plays out in the end, as long as we acknowledge that God is with us and His plan is victorious.

We also mustn’t forget that God is a merciful and loving God. Through the sacrifice of Jesus, we are freed from condemnation and can always come back to God in situations where we are weak. We can then hand him our guilt and wrong decisions, and receive new strength. Even Jeftah, according to the passage in Leviticus, would have had the chance to be cleansed by God of his wrong decision.

Next Step: The next time you are in a situation that stresses or scares you, stop for a few seconds and say a short prayer about what is bothering you, and state out loud that God will give you strength and trust. If you make a mistake, don't be ashamed to come to God, because he loves you and will respond to you with grace.