His favorite strange and mysterious way
Commentary
Object:
The phrase is not found in scripture, but it has worked its way into common parlance. We witness some unfolding providence of God, and we remark about his "strange and mysterious ways." This week we want to make note of his favorite -- and perhaps his strangest -- way of all.
The interventions of God that tend to stand out in our minds and memories are the ones that seem, shall we say, unassisted. We think of the plagues on Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the calming of the storm on Galilee, the raising of Lazarus, and so on. These are clearly miraculous intrusions of God into history and human experience. And while we may be intellectually or stylistically more comfortable with the less spectacular deeds, these are at least the kind of miracles that garner a lot of attention and discussion.
The fascinating pattern that we see as we read the Bible, however, is that God's own preference does not seem to be for such "unassisted" works. Rather, he prefers to have assistance, and specifically he prefers to have our assistance.
This is quite remarkable, of course, when we stop to ponder it. Certainly he does not need our assistance. Do I choose a toddler to pick up the other end when I have to move a sofa or a desk? Do I ask a five-year-old child to take the wheel when I am tired of driving? Do I turn to my dog for assistance in writing a sermon?
We meet with two logical difficulties, you see. First, an omnipotent and omniscient God doesn't need any help to begin with in order to do whatever he wants to do. Second, if he did need help, would he seek it from assistants who are so limited and so much less capable than he is?
Yet from the care of the garden to the spread of the gospel, scripture bears witness to a God who seeks our assistance with his work. It is strange, indeed, and mysterious. Yet that is how he likes to work and that is the truth we may explore and celebrate in this week's passages.
Judges 4:1-7
The narrator begins this story by telling us that "the Israelites again did" something. That could indicate a repeated act. In fact, it reflects a recurring pattern. For they "did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, after Ehud died."
Ehud was their most recent leader and now he was gone. In the era of the judges, meanwhile, there was no built-in mechanism for succession. Hence, each time a judge died Israel was without a leader indefinitely. We observe the pattern that when the people lack godly leadership they wander -- or sometimes even hurry -- into sin and rebellion.
So it was that, in the wake of Ehud's death, Israel rehearsed their familiar pattern. They were without a godly leader and so they strayed. Their human pattern in turn triggered a divine pattern: "So the Lord sold them into the hand of King Jabin of Canaan."
It was not, of course, always God's practice to turn his rebellious people over to King Jabin in particular or even to the Canaanites in general. It was, however, his pattern to chasten them when they strayed. The chastening was not so destructive and final as judgment, mind you. Rather, it was punishment with a purpose. Indeed, it was a very parental purpose, for it was punishment that was meant to encourage obedience.
Another generation used to say, "There are no atheists in foxholes." So it is that we human beings, when we are frightened, facing trouble, and in need, we turn to God. Better that we should turn to God in good times or bad every single day. But at least the reflex to run back to him for help is wholesome and potentially redemptive. So the Lord gave Israel grief, knowing that it would likely spur the people back to him.
We see this purpose of God expressed more explicitly some generations later. When the Lord was using the prophet Hosea to warn the people of his day of troubles ahead, he said, "Perhaps in their suffering they will try to find me" (Hosea 5:15 TEV). Even the trouble God sends, you see, is a function of his love and good will for us.
The method worked in Israel in the days of the judges. The storyteller reports: "Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help." Of course they did. That's what we do. That's the reflex, and we'll give more thought to that reflex below.
Meanwhile, when Israel cried out to the Lord for help on this occasion, he provided his help in the form of a person. That too is a pattern, and that pattern is the focus of our larger consideration this week. In this particular instance, the human instrument of God's work is a woman named Deborah.
The times and people of the biblical world have been given a bad reputation by their detractors and critics. Viewed through a skewed lens, the stories and teachings of scripture are condemned as unenlightened at best and misogynistic at worst. Yet this episode from the rough-and-tumble era of the judges demonstrates a remarkably egalitarian atmosphere in ancient Israel. Without blinking, the text reports Deborah's leading role. She is a prophetess and judge. She was evidently the recognized leader in the land. She functioned as the superior officer to Barak in the battle with Sisera and company. And she was an instrument of God.
The details of the battle are not included in the scope of our assigned passage. But the promise of victory is there and that is enough. In a sense, therefore, the text is well-equipped to speak to us where we may be. We live much of life between the promise and the victory, and so to stop reading before the story is over has personal meaning for us. We may imagine the thoughts and feelings of Deborah and Sisera in the moment where we pause the action: We have the assignment and assurance from God, yet the enemy is still alive, well, and terribly intimidating.
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
As Paul broaches the subject of Christ's return, he says to the Thessalonians: "Concerning the times and seasons... you do not need to have anything written to you." That may be more flattery than fact, however, for much of Paul's two-part correspondence with the Christians in Thessalonica is devoted to precisely that theme. Evidently they do need to have things written to them on this subject. Perhaps his introductory phrase is a gentle way of saying that they ought not need to have anything written to them concerning this matter.
The reason that they and we alike need to hear and know more about this subject is because of the reality Paul expresses next: "The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." That is a recurring image in the New Testament. Peter uses it in a similar context (2 Peter 3:10), and Jesus paints the same picture of his return in Revelation (Revelation 3:3, 16:5). Likewise, in Jesus' teachings in the gospels about that day, there is that same sense of suddenness and unexpectedness (e.g., Matthew 24:36-50).
Paul takes an interesting turn with that theme, however. Playing off the image of night, he plays on light and darkness as spiritual metaphors. The world may be in darkness, but the believers in Thessalonica "are not in darkness" but "are all children of light and children of the day." While the rest of the world may be surprised by the Lord's day, therefore, Christians should not, for he comes during their night but in the midst of our day. That's not necessarily to say that Paul thinks you and I will "know the day or the hour," but rather that we won't be caught unprepared.
Paul further extends the metaphor of day and night by turning to the behaviors that characterize each. Night, he notes, is when people get drunk and drowsy. The believers, however, should be like people who are in the midst of daylight: alert and sober. And, to borrow from Jesus' teaching about the faithful and unfaithful servants (Matthew 24:45-51), daylight living also implies that we will be working.
Finally, in a very subtle move, Paul deftly reinterprets the images of being awake or being asleep. Hearkening back a few verses to his discussion about Christians who have died prior to Christ's return, he employs "awake or asleep" to suggest alive or dead. Either way, the Lord's will is that "we may live with him."
That brings us to what the Thessalonians evidently do need: encouragement. Our assigned passage ends with Paul's instruction to "encourage one another," and we observe that this is a larger theme in this letter. Earlier, Paul had written that "we sent Timothy... to strengthen and encourage you" (1 Thessalonians 3:2). Likewise, in a chapter 4 discussion about Christians who have died and the prospect of Christ's return, Paul similarly urges the Thessalonians to "encourage one another with these words" (4:18). Near the very end of the epistle, Paul once more counsels the people to "encourage the faint hearted" in their midst (5:14). Whether or not the Christians in first-century Thessalonica needed to be written to about the times and the seasons, they needed to be encouraged. And that may be the heart behind what Paul wrote to them on this subject.
Matthew 25:14-30
The longer I preach the scriptures, the more I see in them. Here, for example, is a passage that we are encouraged to blend other assigned passages into a single message for this week. In this passage alone, however, I see an entire handful of messages.
This parable is situated in the midst of three major teachings in Matthew 25 which, together, invite us to preach about the final judgment. On its own, meanwhile, this particular parable is the classic picture of biblical stewardship. On top of those broad themes, I would like to preach a series of four character sermons -- one sermon for each character in the story.
I would preach "The Weight of Five Talents" as a sermon about the first servant. While many folks hear this parable and assume that a talent was a coin, it was actually a unit for measuring weight. According to most sources, it was a significant weight indeed; perhaps as heavy as 75 pounds. When the master entrusted to the first servant five talents of silver or gold, therefore, it was an enormous load.
In our day, of course, a check for a million dollars and a check for 25 cents would look and feel exactly the same. In a day when wealth had fewer substitutes and featured actual mass, however, the volume of money entrusted to the first servant was literally a burden. Painting a picture of that burden might be helpful to certain people in our pews. For being an individual -- or, for that matter, a church or a nation -- that has been blessed with the five talents is a heavy responsibility. Of them will much be expected (Luke 12:48).
My sermon about the second servant would be titled "Overlooked Overachiever." The second servant, you see, is the one we typically ignore. He is not the high-roller that the first servant is, but neither is he the conspicuous failure that the third servant is. Instead, we pass him by quickly because he seems, at first blush, to be redundant -- an uninteresting copy of the first servant. Both men, you see, come back and report that they had doubled their master's money. Since the first servant had already done it and in more fabulous amounts, the second servant plays second fiddle in our minds.
But don't overlook the second servant, for he may be the unsung hero of the story. You recall that Jesus said that the master gave "to each according to his ability." The second servant, therefore, was judged to be less than half as able as the first servant. Yet the second servant achieves the same result: He too doubled his master's money. He exceeded expectations and thus he presents us with a strong and lovely challenge as we endeavor to serve our master well.
The third servant is, in my judgment, one of the saddest characters in all of scripture. "The Sin of Timidity" is the sober message I might preach to explore the third servant's surprising vice. He does not, after all, embezzle, waste, or lose his master's money. He is just careful with it. Criminally careful, it would seem. The paralyzing fear of failure prevents him from serving his master well. No "well done" for him or for those sad souls who are like him.
Finally, I would preach "Looking for a Return" as my sermon about the master. It is a two-part truth and each part is startling. First, the Lord entrusts his things to our care: his creation, his likeness, his people, his work. Past performance does not necessarily encourage this confidence; yet this is his startling choice. Then in spite of our finitude, our blemishes, and our inadequacies, he expects a good return from us. Remarkably, he is not surprised by the servants who did well but rather by the one who did not.
Application
In the Old Testament story of Deborah, Barak, Sisera, and Israel's battle with the Canaanites, we observe a marvelous turning of the tables. The text declares that Sisera had under his command 900 iron chariots. He was, in other words, abundantly equipped with the preeminent weapon of the day. Israel's army, by contrast, was entirely on foot, which suggested a frightening disparity between the two sides in terms of speed and power.
In the end, however, the Lord caused so great a rainfall that the battlefield turned to mud. The very chariots that were Sisera's greatest asset became, instead, a terrible liability. The Canaanites were stuck, and the Israelites were victorious.
Our assigned text does not reach to that climax. It ends, rather, with the introduction of Deborah and Barak as God's chosen instruments in the victory to come. Interestingly, though, neither Deborah nor Barak were capable of the real key to the victory: namely, the rain.
The atheist might want to attribute this key to the battle as a natural event, inasmuch as rain is a function of nature. The believer, meanwhile, would affirm the cause as supernatural, inasmuch as the water was sent and employed to accomplish God's purpose. But notice that neither the atheist nor the believer could give any credit to Deborah and Barak. Still there they are: The human centerpieces and heroes of the story. And why? Because this is God's strange and mysterious preference.
The gospel lection offers its own evidence of the same principle. We understand that the master in the parable represents the Lord. We observe that this master chooses to entrust some of his own property to his servants, and he looks to them to show a return. In strictly human terms, of course, we would assume that these financial managers were experts to whom the wealthy man turned for assistance. In the larger reality represented by the parable, however, we are presented with this astonishing prospect of a God who does not at all need our assistance; yet turns to us anyway and looks for a return.
If I could lift the sofa easily and entirely by myself, I might ask my toddler to help me. That's not because I would need his help but because I want to include him in what I'm doing. Children love that, after all. They have a natural, loving eagerness to help mom and dad, even when the task might be more easily and effectively done without that "help."
So it is that our loving heavenly Father turns to his children. He could do it without us, but he would rather include us in what he is doing. The more childlike we become, the more eager we are to jump in and help.
An Alternative Application
Judges 4:1-7. "The Problem of Slow Reflexes." Our reflexes are tested officially each time we go to the doctor for a routine examination. We are familiar with the little hard-rubber device that the doctor uses to strike that certain spot near our knee. We are familiar with the strange sensation of an involuntary but irresistible leg movement.
Meanwhile, our reflexes are unofficially tested every single day. For throughout the course of daily life, parts of our body are stimulated to react in involuntary ways. If our reflexes are not good -- or if they have become slow -- that can be hazardous to us.
It seems that Israel's spiritual reflexes were slow in the days of the judges. We noted the patterns above. Without godly leadership, the people would stray. The Lord would send them trouble as a way of nudging them back to him. Then in the midst of their troubles, the people would turn to the Lord for help.
So it is that the text says the people of Deborah's day cried out to the Lord for help. But it goes on to add another, disturbing detail: that Jabin and his military "had oppressed the Israelites cruelly twenty years." Twenty years of cruel oppression and then the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help.
Why the delay? They were in trouble earlier. Their situation was painful and hopeless earlier. Why didn't they cry out to the Lord for help earlier?
After a long search for a lost phone or remote control or set of keys, we'll say, "It's always the last place you look!" Of course it is, for whenever you find the lost thing you stop looking for it. By definition, therefore, it will always be in the last place that you look. The spiritual question, however, is whether we make the Lord the last place we look.
We don't know what the Israelites were doing during those twenty years; the narrator doesn't flesh out the details. But from other passages and stories, we can imagine. Perhaps they turned to other gods. Perhaps they relied on superstition. Perhaps they turned to human resources. Or perhaps they merely complained about their lot. Whatever the case, they suffered unnecessarily for twenty years, for they didn't cry out for the Lord.
The passage from Judges indicates that Israel's spiritual reflexes were not very good. How are yours?
The interventions of God that tend to stand out in our minds and memories are the ones that seem, shall we say, unassisted. We think of the plagues on Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the calming of the storm on Galilee, the raising of Lazarus, and so on. These are clearly miraculous intrusions of God into history and human experience. And while we may be intellectually or stylistically more comfortable with the less spectacular deeds, these are at least the kind of miracles that garner a lot of attention and discussion.
The fascinating pattern that we see as we read the Bible, however, is that God's own preference does not seem to be for such "unassisted" works. Rather, he prefers to have assistance, and specifically he prefers to have our assistance.
This is quite remarkable, of course, when we stop to ponder it. Certainly he does not need our assistance. Do I choose a toddler to pick up the other end when I have to move a sofa or a desk? Do I ask a five-year-old child to take the wheel when I am tired of driving? Do I turn to my dog for assistance in writing a sermon?
We meet with two logical difficulties, you see. First, an omnipotent and omniscient God doesn't need any help to begin with in order to do whatever he wants to do. Second, if he did need help, would he seek it from assistants who are so limited and so much less capable than he is?
Yet from the care of the garden to the spread of the gospel, scripture bears witness to a God who seeks our assistance with his work. It is strange, indeed, and mysterious. Yet that is how he likes to work and that is the truth we may explore and celebrate in this week's passages.
Judges 4:1-7
The narrator begins this story by telling us that "the Israelites again did" something. That could indicate a repeated act. In fact, it reflects a recurring pattern. For they "did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, after Ehud died."
Ehud was their most recent leader and now he was gone. In the era of the judges, meanwhile, there was no built-in mechanism for succession. Hence, each time a judge died Israel was without a leader indefinitely. We observe the pattern that when the people lack godly leadership they wander -- or sometimes even hurry -- into sin and rebellion.
So it was that, in the wake of Ehud's death, Israel rehearsed their familiar pattern. They were without a godly leader and so they strayed. Their human pattern in turn triggered a divine pattern: "So the Lord sold them into the hand of King Jabin of Canaan."
It was not, of course, always God's practice to turn his rebellious people over to King Jabin in particular or even to the Canaanites in general. It was, however, his pattern to chasten them when they strayed. The chastening was not so destructive and final as judgment, mind you. Rather, it was punishment with a purpose. Indeed, it was a very parental purpose, for it was punishment that was meant to encourage obedience.
Another generation used to say, "There are no atheists in foxholes." So it is that we human beings, when we are frightened, facing trouble, and in need, we turn to God. Better that we should turn to God in good times or bad every single day. But at least the reflex to run back to him for help is wholesome and potentially redemptive. So the Lord gave Israel grief, knowing that it would likely spur the people back to him.
We see this purpose of God expressed more explicitly some generations later. When the Lord was using the prophet Hosea to warn the people of his day of troubles ahead, he said, "Perhaps in their suffering they will try to find me" (Hosea 5:15 TEV). Even the trouble God sends, you see, is a function of his love and good will for us.
The method worked in Israel in the days of the judges. The storyteller reports: "Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help." Of course they did. That's what we do. That's the reflex, and we'll give more thought to that reflex below.
Meanwhile, when Israel cried out to the Lord for help on this occasion, he provided his help in the form of a person. That too is a pattern, and that pattern is the focus of our larger consideration this week. In this particular instance, the human instrument of God's work is a woman named Deborah.
The times and people of the biblical world have been given a bad reputation by their detractors and critics. Viewed through a skewed lens, the stories and teachings of scripture are condemned as unenlightened at best and misogynistic at worst. Yet this episode from the rough-and-tumble era of the judges demonstrates a remarkably egalitarian atmosphere in ancient Israel. Without blinking, the text reports Deborah's leading role. She is a prophetess and judge. She was evidently the recognized leader in the land. She functioned as the superior officer to Barak in the battle with Sisera and company. And she was an instrument of God.
The details of the battle are not included in the scope of our assigned passage. But the promise of victory is there and that is enough. In a sense, therefore, the text is well-equipped to speak to us where we may be. We live much of life between the promise and the victory, and so to stop reading before the story is over has personal meaning for us. We may imagine the thoughts and feelings of Deborah and Sisera in the moment where we pause the action: We have the assignment and assurance from God, yet the enemy is still alive, well, and terribly intimidating.
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
As Paul broaches the subject of Christ's return, he says to the Thessalonians: "Concerning the times and seasons... you do not need to have anything written to you." That may be more flattery than fact, however, for much of Paul's two-part correspondence with the Christians in Thessalonica is devoted to precisely that theme. Evidently they do need to have things written to them on this subject. Perhaps his introductory phrase is a gentle way of saying that they ought not need to have anything written to them concerning this matter.
The reason that they and we alike need to hear and know more about this subject is because of the reality Paul expresses next: "The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." That is a recurring image in the New Testament. Peter uses it in a similar context (2 Peter 3:10), and Jesus paints the same picture of his return in Revelation (Revelation 3:3, 16:5). Likewise, in Jesus' teachings in the gospels about that day, there is that same sense of suddenness and unexpectedness (e.g., Matthew 24:36-50).
Paul takes an interesting turn with that theme, however. Playing off the image of night, he plays on light and darkness as spiritual metaphors. The world may be in darkness, but the believers in Thessalonica "are not in darkness" but "are all children of light and children of the day." While the rest of the world may be surprised by the Lord's day, therefore, Christians should not, for he comes during their night but in the midst of our day. That's not necessarily to say that Paul thinks you and I will "know the day or the hour," but rather that we won't be caught unprepared.
Paul further extends the metaphor of day and night by turning to the behaviors that characterize each. Night, he notes, is when people get drunk and drowsy. The believers, however, should be like people who are in the midst of daylight: alert and sober. And, to borrow from Jesus' teaching about the faithful and unfaithful servants (Matthew 24:45-51), daylight living also implies that we will be working.
Finally, in a very subtle move, Paul deftly reinterprets the images of being awake or being asleep. Hearkening back a few verses to his discussion about Christians who have died prior to Christ's return, he employs "awake or asleep" to suggest alive or dead. Either way, the Lord's will is that "we may live with him."
That brings us to what the Thessalonians evidently do need: encouragement. Our assigned passage ends with Paul's instruction to "encourage one another," and we observe that this is a larger theme in this letter. Earlier, Paul had written that "we sent Timothy... to strengthen and encourage you" (1 Thessalonians 3:2). Likewise, in a chapter 4 discussion about Christians who have died and the prospect of Christ's return, Paul similarly urges the Thessalonians to "encourage one another with these words" (4:18). Near the very end of the epistle, Paul once more counsels the people to "encourage the faint hearted" in their midst (5:14). Whether or not the Christians in first-century Thessalonica needed to be written to about the times and the seasons, they needed to be encouraged. And that may be the heart behind what Paul wrote to them on this subject.
Matthew 25:14-30
The longer I preach the scriptures, the more I see in them. Here, for example, is a passage that we are encouraged to blend other assigned passages into a single message for this week. In this passage alone, however, I see an entire handful of messages.
This parable is situated in the midst of three major teachings in Matthew 25 which, together, invite us to preach about the final judgment. On its own, meanwhile, this particular parable is the classic picture of biblical stewardship. On top of those broad themes, I would like to preach a series of four character sermons -- one sermon for each character in the story.
I would preach "The Weight of Five Talents" as a sermon about the first servant. While many folks hear this parable and assume that a talent was a coin, it was actually a unit for measuring weight. According to most sources, it was a significant weight indeed; perhaps as heavy as 75 pounds. When the master entrusted to the first servant five talents of silver or gold, therefore, it was an enormous load.
In our day, of course, a check for a million dollars and a check for 25 cents would look and feel exactly the same. In a day when wealth had fewer substitutes and featured actual mass, however, the volume of money entrusted to the first servant was literally a burden. Painting a picture of that burden might be helpful to certain people in our pews. For being an individual -- or, for that matter, a church or a nation -- that has been blessed with the five talents is a heavy responsibility. Of them will much be expected (Luke 12:48).
My sermon about the second servant would be titled "Overlooked Overachiever." The second servant, you see, is the one we typically ignore. He is not the high-roller that the first servant is, but neither is he the conspicuous failure that the third servant is. Instead, we pass him by quickly because he seems, at first blush, to be redundant -- an uninteresting copy of the first servant. Both men, you see, come back and report that they had doubled their master's money. Since the first servant had already done it and in more fabulous amounts, the second servant plays second fiddle in our minds.
But don't overlook the second servant, for he may be the unsung hero of the story. You recall that Jesus said that the master gave "to each according to his ability." The second servant, therefore, was judged to be less than half as able as the first servant. Yet the second servant achieves the same result: He too doubled his master's money. He exceeded expectations and thus he presents us with a strong and lovely challenge as we endeavor to serve our master well.
The third servant is, in my judgment, one of the saddest characters in all of scripture. "The Sin of Timidity" is the sober message I might preach to explore the third servant's surprising vice. He does not, after all, embezzle, waste, or lose his master's money. He is just careful with it. Criminally careful, it would seem. The paralyzing fear of failure prevents him from serving his master well. No "well done" for him or for those sad souls who are like him.
Finally, I would preach "Looking for a Return" as my sermon about the master. It is a two-part truth and each part is startling. First, the Lord entrusts his things to our care: his creation, his likeness, his people, his work. Past performance does not necessarily encourage this confidence; yet this is his startling choice. Then in spite of our finitude, our blemishes, and our inadequacies, he expects a good return from us. Remarkably, he is not surprised by the servants who did well but rather by the one who did not.
Application
In the Old Testament story of Deborah, Barak, Sisera, and Israel's battle with the Canaanites, we observe a marvelous turning of the tables. The text declares that Sisera had under his command 900 iron chariots. He was, in other words, abundantly equipped with the preeminent weapon of the day. Israel's army, by contrast, was entirely on foot, which suggested a frightening disparity between the two sides in terms of speed and power.
In the end, however, the Lord caused so great a rainfall that the battlefield turned to mud. The very chariots that were Sisera's greatest asset became, instead, a terrible liability. The Canaanites were stuck, and the Israelites were victorious.
Our assigned text does not reach to that climax. It ends, rather, with the introduction of Deborah and Barak as God's chosen instruments in the victory to come. Interestingly, though, neither Deborah nor Barak were capable of the real key to the victory: namely, the rain.
The atheist might want to attribute this key to the battle as a natural event, inasmuch as rain is a function of nature. The believer, meanwhile, would affirm the cause as supernatural, inasmuch as the water was sent and employed to accomplish God's purpose. But notice that neither the atheist nor the believer could give any credit to Deborah and Barak. Still there they are: The human centerpieces and heroes of the story. And why? Because this is God's strange and mysterious preference.
The gospel lection offers its own evidence of the same principle. We understand that the master in the parable represents the Lord. We observe that this master chooses to entrust some of his own property to his servants, and he looks to them to show a return. In strictly human terms, of course, we would assume that these financial managers were experts to whom the wealthy man turned for assistance. In the larger reality represented by the parable, however, we are presented with this astonishing prospect of a God who does not at all need our assistance; yet turns to us anyway and looks for a return.
If I could lift the sofa easily and entirely by myself, I might ask my toddler to help me. That's not because I would need his help but because I want to include him in what I'm doing. Children love that, after all. They have a natural, loving eagerness to help mom and dad, even when the task might be more easily and effectively done without that "help."
So it is that our loving heavenly Father turns to his children. He could do it without us, but he would rather include us in what he is doing. The more childlike we become, the more eager we are to jump in and help.
An Alternative Application
Judges 4:1-7. "The Problem of Slow Reflexes." Our reflexes are tested officially each time we go to the doctor for a routine examination. We are familiar with the little hard-rubber device that the doctor uses to strike that certain spot near our knee. We are familiar with the strange sensation of an involuntary but irresistible leg movement.
Meanwhile, our reflexes are unofficially tested every single day. For throughout the course of daily life, parts of our body are stimulated to react in involuntary ways. If our reflexes are not good -- or if they have become slow -- that can be hazardous to us.
It seems that Israel's spiritual reflexes were slow in the days of the judges. We noted the patterns above. Without godly leadership, the people would stray. The Lord would send them trouble as a way of nudging them back to him. Then in the midst of their troubles, the people would turn to the Lord for help.
So it is that the text says the people of Deborah's day cried out to the Lord for help. But it goes on to add another, disturbing detail: that Jabin and his military "had oppressed the Israelites cruelly twenty years." Twenty years of cruel oppression and then the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help.
Why the delay? They were in trouble earlier. Their situation was painful and hopeless earlier. Why didn't they cry out to the Lord for help earlier?
After a long search for a lost phone or remote control or set of keys, we'll say, "It's always the last place you look!" Of course it is, for whenever you find the lost thing you stop looking for it. By definition, therefore, it will always be in the last place that you look. The spiritual question, however, is whether we make the Lord the last place we look.
We don't know what the Israelites were doing during those twenty years; the narrator doesn't flesh out the details. But from other passages and stories, we can imagine. Perhaps they turned to other gods. Perhaps they relied on superstition. Perhaps they turned to human resources. Or perhaps they merely complained about their lot. Whatever the case, they suffered unnecessarily for twenty years, for they didn't cry out for the Lord.
The passage from Judges indicates that Israel's spiritual reflexes were not very good. How are yours?
