Sometimes our Destiny may choose us after we’ve been rejected by those around us. Judges 10 & 11
In the Book of Judges, Israel were continually wavering between serving the Lord and the gods of the nations around them, resulting in periods of harsh discipline. God wouldn’t allow Israel, the only people on earth who knew Him, to go their own way.
11 The Lord replied, ‘When the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, 12 the Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you and you cried to me for help, did I not save you from their hands? 13 BUT YOU HAVE FORSAKEN ME AND SERVED OTHER GODS, so I will no longer save you. 14 Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!’
15 But the Israelites said to the Lord, ‘We have sinned. Do with us whatever you think best, but please rescue us now.’ 16 Then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the Lord. AND HE COULD BEAR ISRAEL’S MISERY NO LONGER. Judges 10
How many times are we guilty of turning our backs on God and going our own way? God doesn’t like to be ignored, nor used, anymore than we do. Israel were attracted by the things/gods in the nations and similarly we may be attracted by the things of this world, but God demands we hold fast to Him and remember His love for us.
Jephthah, (means to open or release), was rejected by his own family. They saw him as inferior, because he came from a different mother and evicted him from the family home.
Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute. 2 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.’ 3 So Jephthah fled from his brothers and settled in the land of Tob, where a gang of adventurers/scoundrels gathered around him and followed him. Judges 11
The people around Jephthah were quicker to see and respect what was in him than those closest to him. David also began with the 400 in the Cave of Adullam, those in debt, discouragement and distress.
Israel were under severe threat from the Ammonites and they turned to Jephthah to lead them. He’d been thrown out of his home, but Israel pleaded with him to come and help them to repel the enemy. His own brothers had rejected him, but now his people needed him.
9 Jephthah answered, ‘Suppose you take me back to fight the Ammonites and the Lord gives them to me – will I really be your head?’
10 The elders of Gilead replied, ‘The Lord is our witness; we will certainly do as you say.’ 11 So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them. And he repeated all his words before the Lord in Mizpah. Judges 11
Jesus knew rejection from his own, but God made Him the capstone or chief stone, holding the whole building in place.
You may have experienced rejection, but God hasn’t called ‘time’ on your life. He alone knows what lies ahead, put yourself in His hand and ask for His Destiny. Jephthah was restored and given a key role in his day. Who knows what God has for us, only good for sure.
God bless and keep you today.