Fight Back With Joy by Margaret Feinberg

Author:Margaret Feinberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worthy Publishing
Published: 2017-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

.008 | ONE PRAYER YOU DON’T PRAY BUT SHOULD

GOD HAS A WAY of providing not a moment before we need it.

Having waded through some of my worst days, I received an e-mail from my friend Valerie, who had been praying for us.

Though I had received many inspiring verses from people, Valerie’s offbeat entry stood out. She unearthed a passage from the book of Judges, noting that this had become one of her go-to stories for life’s difficult moments. Intrigued by the unfamiliar reference, I studied the narrative.

Judges opens with sad news for the Israelites: their beloved leader, Joshua, has kicked the bucket. Everyone wonders who will step in and help them fight the Canaanites for the promised land. The tribe of Judah receives the call.

They join efforts with Simeon and his tribe to capture the king of Bezek. In one of those bloody biblical scenes, the king’s thumbs and toes are sliced off. The barbaric act humiliates the king as a leader and incapacitates him as a warrior. All those years of removing digits of other kings finally catch up with Bezek.

Meanwhile, the tribes of Israel advance city by city, foe by foe. When the troops approach the town of Kiriath Sepher, a seasoned military leader, Caleb, raises the stakes among his army. He declares that whoever captures the land can marry his daughter, Achsah.

One of the soldiers, Othniel, accepts the challenge, conquers the land, and wins Caleb’s daughter’s hand, likely relieved not to have to resort to online dating.

After a slice of wedding cake, Othniel and Achsah settle in the Negev—a rocky, desert region in southern Israel where sand dunes are known to reach one hundred feet high. Adjusting to married life is hard enough without being forced to live in an area famed for its searing sun. Cracked skin. Parched lips. Gritty sand in the corners of eyes.

Not exactly the place a young bride dreams of building a life and starting a family.

This is also where we are invited to enter the story. Our zip code may not be in a desert, but sooner or later, most of us find ourselves forced to live somewhere we would never choose, an inhospitable territory with unbearable conditions.

For Achsah—and us—the story does not end there.

The new bride knows she cannot survive in the desert for long without access to the most fundamental resource: water. In response to the difficult living conditions, Achsah urges her husband to ask her father, Caleb, for a piece of thriving land.

Before Othniel can make the request, Achsah finds herself face-to-face with her father. Scripture notes the newlywed’s first response to seeing her dad: “She got off her donkey.”

This obscure mention contains a touch of humor for modern readers. Like us, changing her situation begins with getting off her tush. Rather than wallow in self-pity or sink into depression, Achsah decides to act with moxie and spunk.

Caleb asks her: “What do you want?”

You may recognize the question. Jesus makes a similar inquiry hundreds of years later. When

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