Judges 9, 10, 11
Have you ever wanted something so much that you would sacrifice anything to get it?
Jephthah wanted victory enough to sacrifice whatever came through the home of his door to greet him on his return. Like most of us, he thought it a safe vow. "Lord, if you'll just let me get a parking space near the door, I'll be polite to the next five people I meet." We all do it. It's called bargaining.
Our desires control us so completely that we will bargain away the future to get immediate results. Buy now. Pay later. No Interest. Advertisers understand us better than we do. We want to win, to succeed at whatever cost. We eat more food than we need and are surprised that we have such poor health. We use more electricity and emit more carbon dioxide than any other nation but we refuse to drive more efficient cars or do without our air conditioning or turn down the heat in winter.
It's a Santa Claus view of God. We make a wish list and send it off expecting God to fulfill our requests. We never expect to have to make any payment of time or service or sacrifice in return. Neither did Jephthah. He never expected his daughter to come through that door. He thought it would be a goat or a lamb, anything, but his daughter.
We may look at Jephthah and say, "I would never do that." But we do. We do it everyday. Every time we trade an hour with our family for one more hour at work. Every time we miss a grandson's ballgame to finish a project. Every time we tell ourselves we'll eat just one more bite and we'll walk an extra 20 minutes. We sacrifice our love, our family, ourselves. We sacrifice our future. If Jephthah could teach us one thing that is to never trade immediate success for unexpected future sacrifice.
NOTE: It's thought by some that this story was included in Judges as a lesson against child sacrifice, which was so prominent in the Canaanite culture.
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