Deborah – Aspirational Adventures

Photographed by me on Christmas Day 2023

This is a follow on from yesterday’s post on how Deborah and Jael were most powerful by being in situ and not trying to fill their day with many things. Yet this is so often what we do even as Christians.

We pray as an activity rather than as a just being. But often if we try the just being we then need to tell someone about that. Or to fill in time we read a book. It becomes another activity. We got to church. We join a club. We meet with others. We do things all the time. We rarely just sit about “wasting time”.

Like I said Jael could have been somewhere else being busy but instead I like to think she was at the entrance to her tent maybe watching the battle unfurl in the valley below. She wasn’t waiting for God to use her, which I think we can often be guilty of, but she was just being.

I have been amazed at how many fitness apps and organisational apps and books are being advertised as something to “fit into your busy life” as though being busy is the important bit. And not being busy is wasting time. When we see someone they are “what have you been up to?” and rarely ask “how are you?” And even if they do ask “how are you?” that is quickly followed by “what have you been doing?” And a young friend of mine once showed me how people ask younger people “What have you been up to?” and even “what have you done at school/college/exams are you taking/doing in your future?” and rarely ask them how they are leading to that conviction that doing nothing is not a good thing.

As you know I’ve been challenged on this recently and I decided to do some QEC around it. Turns out that, for me, and I suspect for others, I worry about what other people will think. I feel that to justify my existence I should be doing something., that I should not be wasting my time and that I should be productive. So I get busy busy busy and then don’t have time for what really matters – being me.

I am now in my 6th decade and there are those things that pull to say “time is running out” and that one should “do something with one’s life“. Now Jael was just being by her tent and because of that God could use her. She may have been young. She may have been old. But she was there. And I don’t think she was sitting there going “God use me” or even bargaining with God that if she learned how to be then God could use her.

Also I am learning if I am not busy doing then I have time to think. Not think about what I can do but just ponder life. I probably pray more as a chatting with God thing than an activity. It is a longer process. I also read a lot more which gives me more things to think about.

We live in a world, whether sacred or secular, that tells us we should be doing. And not just doing but being seen to be doing. We need to have something to tell people. But I am finding the more that I am just being the more I can listen to people because I’m not tired, not stressed, not wondering what I should be doing to fill my time. It means I have time to walk the extra round of the park to find out how someone is, time to go for coffee, time to listen to my husband, my children, my friends, to God.

I don’t know if I’ll even be expected to drive a metaphorical tent peg through someone’s head [whatever that means in 21st Century North Wales terms] but I do hope I am sitting by my tent to do whatever God wants of me if God ever does. And I also hope that if I spend the rest of my life hanging out by my tent and am never used I will also known and trust I have been in the right place.

Jael – Judges 4

From Bryn Cannon’s Pintrest – Ancient World Bedouin Tent

Last Sunday at church we were asked to pick our favourite Bible stories. This story from Judges 4 popped into my head!

Quick summary of Judges 4 – King Jabin, a ruler in a kingdom in North Galilee comes down to attack Israel. Deborah is a prophet and leader in her own right [Yes God is ok with women leaders!] She summons Barak, who we are led to presume is an army commander. She tells him God is going to give him victory over King Jabin’s commander, Sisera. But Barak is a bit of a woose and says he won’t go off to fight unless Deborah goes to. Deborah prophecies that because Barak isn’t going to trust God in all of this then God will give the defeat of Sisera to a woman. When the battle commences Barak, or God, manage to frighten not just the regular soldiers but Sisera as well. Sisera runs away! His entire army are destroyed. Sisera goes to the came of Heber, a Kenite, a descendant of Moses’ father-in-law. Sisera does, what he thinks is a sensible idea, and goes straight to Heber’s tent seeking refuge. Now Jael is Heber’s wife, or possible one of his wives.

Now this next bit, I think is where things get a bit sketchy and are left to the imagination. It says that Jael invites Sisera into the tent. Now we don’t know at this point where her husband, Heber, is, or where the rest of the Kenites are. As you can see from the above picture this isn’t a one man tent.

It says Jael “covered him [Sisera] with a blanket”. Now this is often led to be that they had sex together. I’m thinking, from things I’ve read about soldiers, when they have been fighting their adrenaline is up, their sex drive is up. And here is a woman of interminable age inviting him into her tent. And we know they are alone because of what happens next. I think Jael willingly has sex with Sisera. Not because she is enamoured by his status but because she knows this is the best way, along with the drugged milk, that will cause him to fall into a deep sleep. Remember she is a woman, and maybe a youngish woman but we don’t know. And Sisera is a strong fighting man. She needs him not just drugged but totally sated.

The text says that after covering him with a blanket, then him asking for water and her giving him the milk she covers him with a blanket again. At this point he is exhausted and falls into a deep sleep.

According to the text Jael then takes a hammer and a tent peg and drives it through Sisera’s temple. Now Sisera went to Heber because they were on friendly terms with Jabin and he thought he would be safe. What possessed Jael to kill him? That we will never know. But kill him she did thus fulfilling Deborah’s prophecy.

Why do I like this story?

Well firstly is is two women who are the stars of it all. Even though they are at either end of the status scale – Deborah a leader, Jael possible one of many wives – both go with their strengths. Both of them live out who they are. Deborah doesn’t keep God’s word to herself and hope that Barak, because he’s an army commander, hears God. No she goes and tells him. She does reprimand him but still goes with him into the battle.

But it is that key role that Jael plays that would not have happened if she had been somewhere else. If she had decided that she shouldn’t just sit around in her tent but was off, say, tending the goats, looking after the children, staying close to her husband so she looked like the better wife, or any number of things that a woman of that time, culture and status could be doing. No for some reason she stayed put. For some reason she was willing to entice Sisera under a blanket twice and then kill him. She was willing to be waiting in her home to be used by God, used to bring a victory to a battle.

Also Deborah trust that God will outwork this as God knows best. She gives the prophecy that victory will come by the hand of woman but she doesn’t then go and round up a bunch of women to go into the battle trusting that God will keep them safe. No she says the words, supports Barak, but waits to see what God will do.

I like this story because it reminds me that waiting is good. Not this weird active waiting that seems to be said at times where one isn’t really waiting but is doing things, but just being in situ and seeing what happens. It reminds me too that often I pray for others and get a “word” but then I need to just sit back and let God bring it to pass as God knows best.

For me this is a story of being willing to be in situ and be willing to be used rather than rushing about trying to make things happen.