Learning from the Book of Judges: How to turn your story around

You’ve been writing the story of your life every day since you were first capable of making decisions. What you wrote yesterday determined where you are today, and the story you write today will determine where you are tomorrow.

Some folks can look back with contentment because they’ve written a good story so far. Others of us — not so much. If you’re in this category, take heart because you have the ability to make decisions today that will take your story to a much better place. If you’re a believer, you have the Holy Spirit within you to convict you and show you where you’re going wrong. He also gives you the strength to repent, to turn your story around. But you have to want to follow his guidance. 

Sometimes,  we don’t want to do that. We realize we’ve made poor decisions, but we don’t want to change. We might cry out to God for help when we experience the consequences, but we’re not sorry for what we’ve done. We’re just sorry we got caught.

There’s a story of this very thing in the book of Judges. This book is frustrating to read because you see the people of Israel repeatedly turn their backs on God. After all he’d done for them, they should have been clinging to every command, but that isn’t what happened.

In Judges, the people of Israel are in an endless cycle. They first have peace and prosperity. Then the people get complacent. When things are good, they forget about God and worship false idols. Then sin enters in, and sin always brings pain. Usually, in their case, it’s the pain of God allowing other nations to defeat and oppress them. The people then cry out to God for deliverance from the pain. God responds by sending them a judge who delivers them from their enemies. Victory leads to peace, and the cycle starts all over again. Peace and prosperity, complacency, sin, pain, a cry for help, a judge to bring deliverance, peace. That’s the story the people of Israel wrote.

In Judges 10, once again, the people had turned away from God and were in trouble, as the Philistines and Ammonites oppressed them.

For eighteen years they oppressed all the people of Israel who were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead. And the Ammonites crossed the Jordan to fight also against Judah and against Benjamin and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was severely distressed. (Judges 10:8b-9)

Just like clockwork, the people cried out to God for help.

And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, saying, “We have sinned against you, because we have forsaken our God and have served the Baals.” (Judges 10:10)

They even confessed to God that they’d sinned! They sounded authentic, but God knew their hearts. They had no desire to change. They only wanted to be delivered. God saw right through them. 

“Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods; therefore I will save you no more. Go and cry out to the gods whom you have chosen; let them save you in the time of your distress.” (Judges 10:13-14)

Whoah, that was not what they expected. God washed his hands of them and told them to pound dirt. He said, “If those false gods are so important to you, let them save you this time.” He knew they weren’t upset about their sin; they were just upset that they’d been caught. They didn’t like the consequences. 

We do the same thing. We write our story in a way that leads to a bad place, and then we start to feel pain because of our sins. We cry out to God, “Help me!” But our hearts haven’t changed. We just don’t want to pay the consequences of our story. 

The people of Israel responded to God’s shocking statement by saying, “Okay, God, we admit it, we’ve sinned against you. We’d love to be rescued, but ‘do to us whatever seems good to you.’” But then they quickly added, “Only please deliver us this day” (v. 15). 

They still weren’t being sincere. They were crying out of their pain, not out of genuine sorrow for their sins. God said, “Not this time.”

What the people didn’t realize, and neither do we, is that God was doing the right thing when he sent other nations to oppress them. God disciplined his people so his people would turn back to him. When God sent a judge to deliver them, he didn’t do so because the people deserved it. He did it out of grace. 

When sin sends our story to a bad place, God is there to show us where we’ve gone wrong. He sometimes allows us to experience the consequences of our sin, but that is from his grace. He gives us the strength to repent, to turn our story around by turning back to him. It starts with confessing to God that we’ve sinned (1 John 1:9) and results in his forgiveness. True confession, though, is more than just feeling bad because of our circumstances. It’s more than just being sorry we got caught. 

True confession means feeling sorrow over the fact that we’ve sinned against our Heavenly Father, the One who has done so much for us. It’s admitting to God that we’re wrong and he’s right, and turning from our sins in repentance. 

When you realize you’ve written a poor story, turn to God, confess your sin, and repent. You will find forgiveness. You’ll also turn your story around and point it in a much better direction. 

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