tough truth: Obedience doesn’t always lead to your desired outcome
This is the second of Biblical passages which has influenced my life. Regardless of your stance on the Bible, I hope you’ll find something useful in this. Disclaimer: I am not a seminarian, nor do I pretend to be one.
When I first attempted to read the Bible cover to cover shortly after graduating high school, I struggled to process many Old Testament stories and figure out exactly what I was supposed to learn from them. One passage that particularly bothered me was Judges 20, where the Israelites had to punish the Benjamites for not punishing criminals for a crime done to a Levite’s concubine (it’s graphic and not the emphasis of this post).
Basically, the Israelites consult God on who should fight the Benjamites first, and he tells them to send the Judah tribe to start the fight.
Judah loses. Big time.
Maybe you were expecting something else. I know I was. The cognitive dissonance of, “They followed God’s instructions. Why would He allow them to fail?”
They try again, getting God to sign off on the second attack.
Judah loses again. Not quite as bad as the first time, but still bad.
Now, the Israelites are crying out, asking for help and confirmation. They’re asking God, “Do you really want us to go through with this?”
God finally confirms that He will deliver victory on the third attempt.
If there’s anything I DON’T want you to take away from this, it’s confirmation of the saying “third time’s a charm.”
It took a long time to get to a point where I could appreciate lessons from this passage, so consider the following:
failure is under god’s sovereignty
God wasn’t surprised by their failure. Nor was it caused by some hidden sin that led to their downfall. You can do the right thing - doesn’t mean you’ll get the outcome you think should happen. Whether you write up an underperforming coworker, discipline an unruly child, or confront a sloppy roommate, rarely will things go right the first time. If they do, great! But don’t beat yourself up if it doesn’t. God saw the Israelites’ failure and didn’t zap them for messing up. Instead, He allowed them space and time to reflect and evaluate.
failure is part of god’s process for his people
Did you notice how the Israelites responded after each loss? Yes, they sought God earnestly the first time. But after each successive attempt, they upped their efforts in crying out to God for His help. Some might say this is cruel on God’s part, to let them suffer. But part of God’s intent is to test and refine their efforts to seek Him. Sometimes failure is the only way to get through to someone. For instance, getting fired is the only way for someone to realize his ways aren’t sufficient. We wish a lesser penalty would get his attention. But clearly it hadn’t.
failure ultimately reminds you who’s in charge
No one likes to admit that they’re not God. A bigger struggle is trusting that the higher power is actually competent and active. Ultimately, it’s up to the Israelites to trust in God more to lead them to eventual victory, regardless of how many attempts it actually takes them. Humility and faith are two qualities a lot of people wish they didn’t have to have, largely because it takes control out of their hands. And learning to find the balance between intent and fate ultimately determines how healthy a paradigm you have when navigating life.
Did you find this post helpful? Would love to know what you thought!
