Not Worthless.....Blessed of God!

Judges 11:1-6 -  Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute.  Gilead's wife also bore him sons, and when they were grown up, they drove Jephthah away. "You are not going to get any inheritance in our family," they said, "because you are the son of another woman."  So Jephthah fled from his brothers and settled in the land of Tob, where a group of adventurers gathered around him and followed him.  Some time later, when the Ammonites made war on Israel,  the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob.  "Come," they said, "be our commander, so we can fight the Ammonites."

 

The Israelites find themselves in a predicament….they need the help of someone they have formerly dismissed as useless…run out of town for fear that he would demand an inheritance from the father who gave him existence.  It seems that Jephthah did not just go cry himself a pity party….he rallied around him others that needed to let off steam…and became a mighty warrior. He must have gotten very good at fighting…for the Israelites make him an offer he just can’t refuse…commander and leader of the Israelites if he could win the battle against the feared Ammonites.

 

What man dismisses as worthless….God sometimes blesses in ways that he can use later.  His mom might have been a prostitute...and he might have been badly mistreated…but God had a plan all long.   God used the time he spent outside the city gates to train his aggression….to build him into a mighty warrior….brave and courageous in the face of the Ammonite army.    

 

I sure needed the reminder this morning that things are not always what they seem. In the real sense of the word…we may feel pretty overpowered by our circumstances….completely out of our own control.  We have done nothing to place ourselves where we are….and the people around us may be plotting how to run us out of town…so we can’t mess up their perfect lives.   But God is working his big puzzle…and we just need to be patient….and wait for him to show the world that he has trained us to do a job for him later.  We will get the call one day…that it is time for us to come let God use us….and we will be victorious against that army….if we just trust.