The Thrill of Victory, The Agony of Defeat

Judges 

5-17-09

Text: Judges 2:8-9a, 10-23 

● Judges appears to be this catalogue of ancient battles and obscure historical figures, but it’s eerily familiar. It’s such an honest and accurate representation of the human dilemma: humanity struggling with its sense of identity and illusions of control.           

A phrase comes to us with almost “nauseating” regularity… 

   “Once again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord”.  

God is so “steady”, so “determined”… we are so “erratic”, so “unreliable”.  

● Life is riddled with stories of people who started out really well, but just couldn’t seem to sustain the momentum to finish! Our commitments are eventually either abandoned or they simply become lifeless obligations. Our lives just seem to deteriorate. We are often left with the scars of self-inflicted wounds.

Once again, the spotlight shines the brightest not on the inconsistency of humanity, but on the faithfulness of our God. 

● We seem to have this incredible capacity for consistently “sabotaging” our own pursuit of wholeness (we’re so ‘self-destructive’); our actual experience of the ‘advantaged-life’ (“blessed”) seems so intermittent and sporadic. 

I am fully cognizant of the fact that wholeness is progressive, but I’m not sure it was meant to be this grueling and agonizing. 

(2) reflections on Judges (and life):

1) We just always seem to be this paradox of immense potential (all that we ‘could be’, but ‘we’re not’] and incredible self-destruction.

2) We actually possess the capacity to see our circumstances as somehow totally isolated from our choices.

● They became their own “reference-point”, and when we do, we destine ourselves to an endless cycle of what the Bible calls “folly” (dictionary definition: “a costly undertaking having an absurd or ruinous outcome” ). 

Proverbs 19:3 “A man’s own folly ruins his life…” 

The cycle of dysfunction, as represented in the book of Judges looks something like this:

            ~ We find ourselves in crisis which is most often the result of disobedience.

            ~ The crisis finally awakens us to our need of help and we “cry out” (I say “finally”, because, as a general rule, it’s not until we have worn ourselves out and wounded ourselves sufficiently by attempting to remedy the situation on our own); when we’ve run out of “ideas and energy”.

Admittedly, we’re almost a little hesitant to ask for help because we have spent so much of our time aspiring toward self-sufficiency and ignoring God.

            ~ Grace-happens! God intervenes because he doesn’t seem to want us to get too successful at sinning. After all, what’s at risk is all that he has created and loves. So, he allows us to experience the consequences of our choices in hopes that it will evoke repentance.

            ~ Déjà vu (Fr. meaning “already seen”). Not in the eerie and unexplainable sort of way, but in the frustrating and the predictable way. 

Read Joshua 23:6-13

Joshua seems to suggest some recognizable traits involved in this digression. Joshua is not looking in the future and warning them of some unforeseeable challenge, but looking to their past and identifying noticeable patterns. 

~Fatigue--- (vs.6) “be very strong…” (Gal.6:9)

            The word “strong” in Hebrew has a host of definitions including ‘resolute’, ‘sustain’, ‘rigid’, ‘devoted’. 

● We just get tired; the constant struggle just seems to deplete us. Our resolve gets tested and we vacillate; we consider other options. It’s true that we don’t discover the strength of temptation until we attempt to resist it!

~Carelessness--- (vs.6) “be careful to obey [all]…”

When our energy is depleted, our lives get sloppy; we get careless. We fail to give attention to the things that help “order” our lives, the rhythms which very quietly and sometimes unnoticeably are shaping us (i.e. prayer, immersing ourselves in the story, being available to the Spirit, solitude as well as companionship).  

● Eventually, we lose control under the guise of “self-control”; our commitments become negotiable and our obedience ‘selective’. We’re “whipped and trapped” by our very freedoms; our independence. 

~Deviation--- (vs.6) “without turning aside…” [be careful of all that you experience on the detour].

            Not turning away, just turning aside [“Ever missed your exit because you were temporarily distracted?”] Compromise starts with innocent flirtation; casual exploration of the possibilities. No one plunges into flagrant disobedience. No one just wakes up one morning and decides to forfeit their soul. 

● What happens is that we begin to ‘compartmentalize’ our lives and convince ourselves that we will in no way be weakened or affected by deviating “just this once” or “just in this one area”. When we do, we begin to “dis-integrate” (break into smaller pieces).

Show me someone who you would describe as having ‘turned away’ from God and I’ll show you someone who began making seemingly harmless little compromises when they thought nobody else was looking.           

● You see, these convictions (value determinations that we make about life and God), reduce the margin for error because they are actually what we could call “pre-determined obedience”. They allow us to choose in advance how we will respond. Without them, you face this internal “tug-o-war” with each new decision. 

● In the heat of the moment is no time for you to be hacking out a moral strategy. Postponing obedience only intensifies your desires and makes it more difficult to say no.

~Tolerance--- (vs.7,12) “association” and “ally yourselves” 

1 Corinthians 15:33 “Don’t me misled: Bad company corrupts (ruined when mixed) good character (life-sustaining practices).” 

● There’s this rather innocent melding of various paradigms and values (syncretism) which is meant to make any one particular way less distinguishable. It allows us to keep our options open (inconsistent with devotion).

[I got a haircut once from a girl who described herself as a Catholic, Baptist who was practicing Native American spiritism]. 

● There’s a “desensitization” which seems to characterize our digression; the process by which we are formed and informed by repetition and over-exposure. De-sensitization is what causes an individual to no longer react to something that previously evoked a response. 

● Being de-sensitized proves that the influence has been both “subtle” and “profoundly effective”. It’s where we rather unsuspectingly adopt the philosophies of the culture as our own: we become identified “by” our culture (instead of “with”) and forfeit our influence. 

● At the risk of sounding overly-dramatic or legalistic: be careful that your closest associations are actually “allies” in life (def. “one associated with another as a helper”; “to bind to”).

In all of our lives, there are certain relationships or associations which are unhealthy; detrimental; those associations which cause us to compromise our convictions under the guise of “persuasion”.  

~Adaptation---

James describes it as “taking the bait”. In order to ‘lure us’, it must: 1) appear real, 2) appear safe.

Deception is the capacity to look at the circumstance and fail to see what’s really there. Deception allows you to look at the opportunity but prevents you from seeing the destructive consequences which are undetectable. 

Our mistake? We underestimate the power of our desires and we overestimate our own stability.

            James says that when looking to assign blame, we need look no further than our own “desires”. Desires are not inherently “evil”; they simply indicate some unfulfilled need. So, it’s how we direct them (or to what we attach them) which determines whether they will be met in a healthy or destructive manner. 

Our desires have the capacity to produce behavior which defies logic.

            I have found that my rationale will always reach a conclusion that’s consistent with my desires [my desires have the capacity to manipulate logic and distort truth to ensure my satisfaction. In a word: we become ‘vulnerable’. 

But, Judges is not just about the cycle of sin and compromise, but about the relentless love of God which pursues humanity in order to break the cycle.

God gives us the gift of confession which proves to be the safe confines in which we are able to honestly confront our brokenness and the inner-turmoil we face as a result.

God gives us the gift of repentance which not only allows us to admit our brokenness, but provides us with the courage and energy to actually live differently; to actually choose a “less destructive” path for our life. 

Every time that we are ready to confront and admit our brokenness, it seems to arouse the hope that we can really be made whole.

It comes at the moment when our desire for rescue finally overtakes our determination to save ourselves [that the drowning man cannot be saved until he stops ‘flailing around’]. 

● This is the path that we are encouraged to choose (confession/repentance) in order to reverse the damaging effects of sin. By connecting our current circumstances to the choices we have made, we actually regain the power to pursue a more hopeful future and break that cycle of failure.