The Story of Deborah and Jael, Part Two: Deborah

The Story of Deborah and Jael, Part Two

My Name is Deborah

"Follow God and fight for what he fights".

Note: The Story of Deborah and Jael, Part One introduced a story of faith, love and salvation, told through the lives of two remarkable women: Deborah and Jael. Actually, the story depends as well upon a third woman, unnamed, a mother in anguish. Together, these three women remind us that God desires that we fully rely upon what he says, God desires that we fully love what God loves, and hate and what God hates, and God desires that we fully live with him. Here is Deborah's story, told from her viewpoint, as if she were able to speak to us now, face-to-face.

I've been asked to explain why my story is in the Bible, and how it connects with you all.

That's going to be a bit difficult.

I grew up knowing God's promise, that he had chosen us to be his people, and he would settle us in a land of our own, that we would be a blessing for the entire world because we would point to the great grace and mercy of Almighty God, Creator and Sustainer of the world. Yet my people had endured 20 years of oppressive cruelty.

I grew up trusting absolutely in the judgement of God. I never went to God in hopes of being found guilty. Rather, I always went to God with the confident expectation that he would say and do what was right and good, whether it meant for me correction or commendation.

I trusted God as my Judge. And he made me a judge of my people.

They called me The Bee. I was systematic and logical. I saw right and wrong as black and white. I listened to God, I remembered his ways and words, and I allowed his words to completely rule what I said, felt and decided.

In the midst of oppressive cruelty, abandoned farms and roadways, fear and doubt, I became known as The Woman of Splendor. God's people traveled miles to me for judgement, in much the same way as I myself went to God. They never expected a verdict of condemnation. They hoped for God's declaration of rightness. They sought resolution to conflicts and circumstances that threatened their well-being, their contentment and their security.

However, wrong is wrong.

I did not hesitate to rebuke, to reprimand, to restrict. I corrected and condemned according to what God said was right and wrong.

When God finally, after 20 years, told me to wake up, to raise an army, to fight and destroy that which cruelly oppressed us, the people listened. They obeyed, we marched, we fought and we killed 10,000 enemies.

But, how can that connect with you all? Who are the thorns in your sides, the snares that trap, the plunderers which harm and bring distress? Who afflicts and oppresses you? Who feeds on you and consumes you?

Christians, your warfare is not physical! God's apostle Paul taught truth in the Book of 2 Corinthians:

Though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.

2 Corinthians 10:3 (ESV)

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

2 Corinthians 10:5 (ESV)

You do not war in the flesh. You war to destroy arguments and opinions and thoughts that put yourselves above God. You force your thoughts to obey Christ. You confront disobedience with obedience.

Your warfare is against sin that dwells in your own heart. Your passions are at war within you, and you too often love yourselves above God Who created, sustains and saves you!

The apostle James wrote to you:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

James 4:1-3 (ESV)

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"?

James 4:4-5 (ESV)

My final words as Deborah, God's judge over you, his people: Follow God and fight for what he fights.

Next week:

Part 3 will imagine Jael speaking to us directly, attempting to explain why her story is recorded in the Bible, and how it may connect to our modern, American-Christian story.

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