Year 4, Day 281: Judges 20

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: D2,

• D₂ is the step in the discipleship process where God builds character as we begin to help in God's work.  Often it involves us taking a good long look at ourselves and seeing what needs to be cut away.  Affectionately, this process is referred to as “the pit of despair” because when we see ourselves for who we really are it is easy to despair and feel like we’ll never get it right, we’ll never be right, and we’ll never be useful to God.  The disciple needs time, vision, and grace to come out of the pit of despair.

In Judges 20 we have an unusual story where Israel comes in civil war against Benjamin.  Within this story we hear the people of Israel seek the will of the Lord, obey the will of the Lord, and find themselves stumbling into failure the first few days of battle.  In my theological commentary from three years ago, I give some really cool thoughts as to why this should happen.  You can read more about that in the post to which I link above.

To continue further with what I say there, I think what we see happening is that God isn’t afraid to use failure to build character.  When we are building character, we know that we need time, vision, and grace in order to build that character.  Sometimes we experience failure because God needs us to develop the necessary components before truly being drawn into a successful obedience to God’s calling.

That’s actually what we see here.  The Hebrew people are routed the first few days of battle.  God is teaching the Hebrew people patience and humbleness while drawing out the arrogance and over-confidence of the Benjaminites.  When the Hebrew people are properly humbled and patient and obedient, then God springs his trap on Benjamin.  The Hebrew people bring mass destruction upon Benjamin and the town of Gibeah only after God has developed character within the Hebrew people.  The Hebrew people may lose a few battles, but because God is with them developing their character, the victory of the war was assured.

I think we can really pay attention to this dynamic.  How often do we give up when we experience failure when in truth we should dig in and be patient with God?  How often do we quit when God is just getting started with where He wants us to go?  How often do we see the pit of despair in D2 discipleship and we retreat away rather than taking the time to learn the lesson at hand?

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