Be yourself and beat that bully

 

be yourself & beat that bully.

I’ve started a new Bible study called ARISE because I don’t like bullies, and I believe women are uniquely equipped to handle all the injustices in modern society. We are already spending our lives defending the weak and empowering the average to be strong. That’s why we’re often peacemakers. When we encounter the strong, we usually tell them to be kind. (If they’re our children, we might enforce it, but that’s another blog.)

I’m so impressed with the seemingly insurmountable obstacles that women in ancient times overcame to live as their authentic selves. They stood for justice, they raised warriors, they spoke truth, they followed God–and they did it in a man’s world.  I have felt compelled to study and share truths about how ordinary Bible women became extraordinary culture-changers because that’s what I want to do and who I want to be.

My theme verse (Judges 5:12) for the study came from the story of Deborah, the only recorded female judge in the history of the Old Testament.

So right there, I like her immediately. She even had a tree named after her, where she advised and mediated and corrected people’s bad behavior. She was a professional mom to her country.

At one point, Deborah instructed the Israelite general Barak to fight and defeat Sisera, Israel’s arch enemy from the neighboring country of Canaan. Sisera had “cruelly oppressed” the Israelites for 20 years.

It seems that even God gets tired of waiting for bullies to change.  God hates injustice. (It’s one of his declared reasons for saving mankind.)

But Barak was afraid to go to battle against Sisera, who was the biggest bully at the time, the guy with the trained army and all the power. Barak was intimidated.

So Barak asked Deborah to go with him into battle, which she did, even though she had zero battle experience. Maybe Barak understood that the presence of God in a person’s life outweighed their talents and training. Note: Deborah did call herself the “mother of Israel;” if you want anyone facing a bully with you, it’s probably your mom.

Of course, in the battle, God intervened on behalf of Israel. You can read the account here. It’s pretty spectacular.

• Barak had 10,000 foot-soldiers
• Sisera had 900 chariots with warriors (probably with archers & warriors plus drivers)–a clear advantage
• God led Sisera into the Kishon River valley, which seemed like a short cut to surprise Israel who was assembling on Mount Tabor
• God then overflowed the Kishon River, and the chariots got stuck or washed downstream; the 900 charioteers got out and fought in hand-to-hand combat (a clear disadvantage against 10,000 foot soldiers)
• Isreal killed every single one of Sisera’s soldiers, but Sisera escaped on foot
• Sisera fled to a nearby nomadic tribe’s tent (clan of Heber)  because the family of Heber were friendly to the Canaanites
• Sisera entered Jael’s tent (she was Heber’s wife, but Heber was not home)
• Jael was a homemaker, skilled at pitching tents and living off the land
• Jael gave Sisera a drink of warm milk and covered him with a blanket; after he fell asleep, she drove a tent peg through his temple and killed him

Deborah was not a trained general.

Jael was not a trained assassin.

Yet they listened to the Spirit’s prompting and took the opportunities presented to them to fight for justice.

They made themselves available.

I think we underscore the power of being available for God to work. We like to set perimeters around what we will do, what conditions are acceptable for us to put ourselves out there. (That’s not being available, and that’s not obedience.)

Instead of arguing about how they weren’t qualified, these two ladies let God use their natural gifts (advising people/pitching tents) to fulfill the plans God made to alleviate Israel’s suffering at Sisera’s hands. They acted when others were afraid to do so. Because of these women, Israel enjoyed peace for the next 40 years–that’s a whole generation of peace because of two simple acts of obedience and availability!

Deborah and Barak’s song of praise in Judges 5:12 goes like this:

“Arise, Deborah, arise and sing your song!”

Arise means to awake, wake up, or get up. Wake up. Get up. Get busy doing the thing you already know how to do.

Wake up and do what you were created to do. That thing may seem ordinary and unimportant, but God gifted you with it to accomplish an eternal purpose. He’s giving you a job right now to restore justice, to beat the bully, to silence the scorner. That’s how God works.

GET UP AND DO THAT THING.

(You’re going to win, so don’t be intimated.)