In Judges 3, there is something written that could easily be overlooked. Frankly, this is one reason of 10,000 why I so enjoy the Old Testament! There are many hidden nuggets that jump out only at the precise timing of the Lord! I have read through the book of Judges numerous times and somehow failed to see these simple words: they were left to test the Israelites.

In Judges 3:1 and again in verse 4 this simple phrase is written. Who was left and why was there a need for testing? What on earth does this mean for today’s reader of the Word??

The Israelites had been led through the wilderness by Moses and conquered the neighboring nations of the Promised Land with Joshua. Joshua, then, brought the nation of Israel near Canaan for the people to occupy as was the promise of God. When Judges was written Joshua had died which left the people to rely on the teachings of Moses to remember all that God had provided for them and done for them as a nation.

The people needed to start doing the work of their faith on their own instead of relying on a direct spokesman from God.

God had specifically told the Israelites, through Moses, to completely annihilate the nations that were conquered so there would be no temptation to intermarry or to start using the customs of the existing people- especially the worship of pagan gods. In many areas, this was disobeyed and the Israelites allowed for there to be survivors in the Philistines, the Sidonians,  Canaanites, and Hittites.

In Deuteronomy, it is clearly written that the people were to love and obey God by following His commands. In doing so, they would continue to receive His blessings. If they did not, they were told there would be consequences- curses, even.

So, here we are.

The Israelites let survivors live among them in the land given to them by God. What does God do about that? He decides to use this situation for His good…to allow for their faith in Him to grow as they learn to lean on Him during times of testing. Previously, with Joshua, God had driven out the nations that opposed Israel. Now, He decides to let the nations stay and “use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the Lord and walk in it as their forefathers did” (Judges 2:22).

We are told in Judges 3 that there were many Israelites who had never seen warfare before: they had not fought in the victorious battles that were waged with Joshua at the helm. They had no idea what a battle with the Canaanites would be like…they had never before experienced the Lord fighting their battles for them. A lesson needed to be taught.

God allowed their enemies to remain living amongst them to give the younger Israel generation an opportunity to stretch their faith and obedience muscles…

Would they follow the commands given to them through Moses or go their own way?

Robert Frost encouraged us to take the road less travelled…but does that mean to go the harder road? Does it mean to blaze your own trail even though wisdom from Heaven has given a clearly marked path? Doesn’t life provide enough challenges all on its own, do we really need to choose a more difficult road?

The end destination may well be the same, but the amount of time taken to get there and the battle scars earned or wounds obtained along the way may not be worth the extra effort.

The Israelites continued to choose disobedience. God continued to use their disobedience to teach them, to test them, to prod at them to look at Him for provision, protection, and guidance. They had periods of rest through the efforts of the “judges” used by God to defend them against their enemies…and then they would falter again. Ultimately, they went into 400 years of exile and captivity with the absolute destruction of life they had previously lived.

Are there issues in my life that God continues to use to test me? To teach me?

It certainly seems I have had the same life lessons handed to me over and over…to test my patience, to teach me compassion, to encourage me to listen, to get me to trust God, to be appreciative and content with what God has given me, to give me wisdom and hone my skills of discernment.

The lessons have come in big and small packages: sudden illnesses, job loss, job insecurity, job stress, financial concerns, relationship issues, future concerns,  a leaky pipe in the camper causing a minor flood, losing an important power chord while camping and unable to purchase another one,  and so on…

How do I respond to the testing is the question…do I react impatiently or with panic? Do Dan and I start hollering at each other? Do I quit my job because I don’t like it right now? Do I despair without hope in sickness or death?

As I seek my memory banks for an example of a response I have had, I am reminded of a terrible time in my life. My husband and I had both given our lives to the Lord and were serving Him faithfully. We were getting ready to leave to chaperone a retreat weekend and to celebrate Dan’s newly testified life in Christ.

I stumbled across a secret he had been keeping from me…a secret that could surface every single fear I had turned over to the Lord after the death of Dee. It could also destroy the trust that had been rebuilt between my husband and myself in the restoration of our marriage.

This was a life-altering discovery.

I confronted my husband immediately and he denied nothing. He confessed that he was relinquishing that aspect of his life to God and had hoped the celebration of the weekend would leave that part of him in the grave as he started his new life as a child of God.

I felt lied to.

The complicating problem was that we still had to go on this trip. There was no way out except to ruin an event for 20+ people who were counting on us. But, to go, we had to take this new reality with us without being able to reconcile it between us as there was no time nor privacy opportunities.

I was absolutely FORCED to make a decision between throwing in the towel, having a fit, humiliating my spouse with judgement and condemnation, quit on him and the life God had rebuilt between us, OR trust that the Lord would use this for His good and grow me in it…

I had an opportunity for solitude the morning after we arrived for the retreat, prior to the coming of the big crowd. I found a cut -out in the sand on the shore of Lake Michigan and sat there, silently listening to the waves crash onto the beach. I sobbed. I cried out to God “WHY? WHY NOW?”  I told Jesus how scared I was; I did not want to lose my husband in the same manner we lost his sister. I confessed that I was so angry to have been put into this situation when I thought we “had put this to rest” a year before.

As I cried and prayed, I continued to stare at the waves that kept coming to the beachfront. They did not stop. There were small ones mixed in with the bigger ones.

 The lyrics from Hillsong’s “Oceans” entered my head as gently as those waves were rolling:

You call me out upon the waters, the great unknown…where feet may fail… And I will call upon Your name, and keep my eyes ABOVE THE WAVES…Your grace abounds in deepest waters- Your sovereign hand will be my guide. Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me, You’ve never failed and You won’t start now.

Trust me, the easy road to choose would have been to stay angry and to doubt every choice my husband had made for the last year.

But, the road of obedience that God had paved for me was the path of forgiveness. I learned once that forgiveness means to choose to stop holding an act against someone. 1 Corinthians 13 says that love keeps no record of wrongs. Colossians 3 tells me to forgive others as God has forgiven me.

I went back to where my husband was waiting for me- he said he had searched for me on the beach but could not find me and was worried. I was sitting in a fairly obvious spot so I was surprised I was not visible to him.  I realized that God had tucked me away so He could reveal Himself to me; so I could be strengthened by Him to do what needed to be done next.

I chose to forgive my husband. In that decision, I also made the choice to trust him- to not lose faith in who he was becoming in the Lord. I chose to be obedient to the commitment I had made in my marriage. I chose to put my marriage and my husband back into the hands where they belonged- the Lord’s.

My husband was shocked. This event forever changed the both of us.

The celebration of his faith in Christ that weekend became one my most prized memories to date…it was beautiful~

Strangely enough, we were tested once more that very same day with an extreme scenario I will name “A Blast from the Past”.

We chose honesty, confession, repentance, and forgiveness pretty much immediately!

“Perhaps God has left obstacles in your life – hostile people, difficult situations, baffling problems- to allow you to develop faith and obedience” (Life Application Study Bible NIV).

What I have found is that when I learn the lesson that particular testing stops…unless I forget the lesson and the Teacher who taught it.