My least favorite story from the Bible:

This morning I was reading for my devotional.  The part that I encountered was about Jephthah in Judges who ended up having to kill his own daughter as a sacrifice. I decided that this is probably one of my least favorite moments and stories from the Bible.  I know that may not be the most Christian thing to say, but reading this particular story just puts a bad taste in my mouth.  It leaves me with a lot of questions and not completely understanding.  Then I remembered that it is alright to question and not understand everything in the Bible, as long as I let this questioning and processing bring me closer to God, rather than farther away.  That is exactly why I am going to spend some time blogging about this particular story in the Bible.  

Here is the scenario.  A man named Jephthah was fighting battles for the Lord, and one of those battles was against the Ammonites.  He promised that if the Lord helps him win against the Ammonites, he will sacrifice the first thing that will come out of his house.  The Lord helped Jepthah succeed against the Ammonites.  However, his daughter just so happened to be the first thing to come out of his house.  Because of this, he ended up having to sacrifice his daughter to fulfill his promise to the Lord. 

The question is why do I hate this part of the Bible so much?  Yes, there is sacrificing of a person which most people don’t necessarily enjoy, but then I also hate how Jephthah’s plans were completely destroyed.  He was going to fight hard for the Lord, succeed, and then sacrifice the first animal or something like that to come out of his house.  He wept when he saw his daughter come out of the house, greeting him.  This left him shattered and destroyed. We all have had our plans, and they haven’t necessarily gone as we have planned.  We can maybe even think to ourselves, “How could God have let this happen?”  “Why would God do this?”  “What would be his purpose in this?”  and “How can this really be used for God’s glory?”  Have you ever thought of questions like these?   

I know I thought that when my grandpa died.  He died all of a sudden, two days before my grandma’s birthday, and a few weeks before my second year of teaching.  What was the point of my grandpa dying, and what was the point of him dying when he did?  I am even saying that, and I got at least 25 years with my grandpa.  Many others have faced stronger and more gruesome tragedies than I have.  However, even though it is sad to believe that the Lord can use this story, it has actually helped me grow closer to the Lord.    

Besides being willing to trust the Lord completely, there is another incredible lesson that can be learned from this story.  It is important to remember that we need to sacrifice everything for the Lord.  This man, Jephthah was willing to sacrifice his daughter to the Lord.  Granted, this is a bizarre scenario, and I don’t think that God would ever ask us to sacrifice a person in the sense of, you know, killing them.  He may ask us to sacrifice a loved one to him in that we trust him to do whatever he knows that he needs to do for the goodness of himself.  It can be hard to trust the Lord, even though we have to remember that as humans, we don’t have the power of sovereignty that he does.  He has the full picture, where we only have the pieces. Being willing to give up ourselves and our individual pieces can be hard, but in the end, it will make beautiful scenery.  

I know that one of the items that I really struggle to sacrifice is time.   I have probably discussed this before on my blog, but I absolutely love to schedule out my time.  I am a type-A personality, who loves to get as much done as possible in the time allowed.  (I do, of course, have my lazy days, though, when that doesn’t happen).  Every day I have six items that my Christian planner calls, healthy habits, that I do to grow as a person.  One of those healthy habits is spending time with the Lord and spending time in devotionals that I do pretty much every day.  However, do I really try to make sure that I am spending quality time with the Lord, or am I just spending time doing the devotional because it is one of my healthy habits?  

I know that I really need to spend time sacrificing to the Lord.  I need to spend my time really meditating and diving into God’s word and all that the words have to say.  Sometimes, I am just reading the Bible, but I am not really thinking about how the words should impact me and change my perspectives.  I have tried to spend more time doing that as I have started this blog.  When I do read something that changes my perspective or catches my eye, I have tried to dive deeper into understanding by writing it out.   

In conclusion, the story of Jepthah might not be a pleasant, happy story, but it is one that God used to showcase how we as Christians need to trust God’s plan.  Sometimes his plan may require sacrificing on our ends, but he knows what he is doing.  It is not always easy to trust his plans, but in the end, we will be a lot better off than trusting in our own smaller-scale plans.