I read a scripture the other morning and have had to ponder it for 2 days!  It says:

“These are the nations that God left there, using them to TEST the Israelites who had no experience in the Canaanite wars.  He did it to train the descendants of Israel, the ones that had no battle experience, in the art of war…..BUT the People of Israel made themselves at home among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.  They married their daughters and gave their own daughters to their sons in marriage.  And they worshipped their gods.”  Judges 3:1-6

 Emphases all mine...

I have been meditating on this a lot.   I think that God puts things in our lives so we can learn to OVERCOME them.  I have to look at my life and ask myself which things in it are put there so I can learn to overcome?  Which of those things have I actually become “at home” with?  I don’t necessary have a “fighter's” personality and it is very easy for me to just become at home with things.  I think I could probably meditate on this concept for weeks!  My prayer:  Lord, reveal those things in my life that I was meant to OVERCOME.  Show me areas that I have become “at home” with the very things I was meant to forsake and conquer.  Thank you that You love me so much that you take the time to test me.  Please grant me with the motivation and the strength to be an overcomer!!

Wow, this is an amazing story, these first few chapters in Judges.  So, we all know the story…Israel follows God for awhile, then they forsake God and are given over to captivity.  They cry out, God sends a deliverer (how awesome are You Lord?  Even when your people are unfaithful, You are faithful!) Back and forth it goes.  Then, Deborah and Barak go to battle.  Barak won’t go unless Deborah goes with him, so she basically says, “fine, I’ll go, but you won’t get the glory because God will use a woman’s hand to take care of it”.  So, I’m thinking Deborah has kind of a saucy attitude.  Agreeably, it is strange that Barak won’t go without her, but I can only guess that he knew she was an amazing warrior.  But for her to say, “fine, I’ll go but a woman will get the glory”  made me think she was being kind of prideful, already bragging about winning the battle with her own hands.  BUT WAIT…as the story continues, SHE is not the woman that God uses to hand Sisera over to Israel.  She was not bragging, but prophesying!  After Deborah and Barak routed Sisera and his troops, frightened Sisera abandons his chariot and runs into the tent of Jael, wife of Heber.  As the story goes, she invites him in, he asks for water, she gives him milk, covers him with a blanket so he can rest, he asks her to stand guard, she agrees and waits for him to fall asleep.  THEN, sweet woman that she is, takes a hammer and drives a tent-stake through his temple all the way to the ground and kills him!  God DID use a woman to overcome Israel’s enemy, but it wasn’t the mighty warrior, Deborah…for the Word says:

“Most blessed of all women is Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite, most blessed of homemaking women…” Judges 5:24

WHAT?  Most blessed of all women is a HOMEMAKING woman?  Yes, ladies, that’s correct.  As we are faithful day in and day out to this sometimes “not-so-high” calling of homemaking, eventually God creates a moment in time for greatness.  Often I try to go looking for opportunities of greatness, a chance to do some amazing feat for the Lord. 

And so, I often miss the fact that as I go about my homemaking duties, and concentrate on loving my family and serving them, an opportunity to conquer and overcome, an opportunity for greatness, may just run right up to my tent!