In our Bible Study on Wednesday nights the girls were assigned the task of researching a woman of the Bible that we admired and to write about what made her a great leader. My mind went to Deborah.
There are many great women in the Bible and each of their stories serve to tell us something about the way we have been created as women. As I go through and read their stories I am both encouraged and convicted about my life as a woman of God.
I didn't know much about Deborah except that she was the only woman Judge in the Bible and yet I have always admired her and to some degree envied her. Even before I began to research her she seemed to me amazing and unique, and I was sure she would live up to my expectations.
The name Deborah means "bee", which immediately caught my attention as my name also means bee. Every book and commentary that I read mentioned the meaning of her name and that she indeed lived up to it in that "she was industrious, sagacity (wise), and of great usefulness to the public, her sweetness to her friends and sharpness to her enemies." I love the last line that stated she was sweet to her friends and sharp like a bee sting to her enemies. I have always loved the idea that a woman was made to show the graceful, nurturing, sensitive, loving side of God as only a woman can and yet God did not make her helpless or weak, He also put in women a fierceness, strength, and ability to rise to the occasion.
That is exactly what Deborah did. She became a Judge during a period of time when Israel's enemy and oppressors actually resided within their borders, living among them. Because of this their oppression of the Israelites was much greater than it had ever been before. Yet Deborah answered the call from the Lord to awake.
Perhaps the enemies of Israel did not see her as a threat because she was a woman and therefore let her hold council under her palm tree without much opposition, or maybe she held court under the palm despite the danger to her life. If it was the first then they sorely underestimated this prophetess of God.
Like Daniel who prayed and followed God despite the lion's den, Deborah continued to do what God had called her to do. This blows my mind sometimes. I look at myself and how easily I get discouraged and I marvel at Deborah's strength. Often I start out to follow God and I yearn to go to the next level of my spiritual walk/relationship with Him. I go along making little sacrifices and little changes in my life to bring me closer to my goal when all of a sudden I find myself face to face with the life I want to have in Christ, only to glimpse the price that comes with it and shrink back.
I get a hint of the pain and suffering that comes from going through the refiner's fire and I falter. I decide that the level I am at isn't so bad after all and I'm comfortable there, so I stay, I give up and what is it that I am unwilling to do? Give up a favorite tv show that I shouldn't be watching, commit to going to bed a little earlier to give myself time to read His word, deny myself of worldly pleasures to better serve Him? I am shamed by those who suffer injury and lose their lives to live for God. Oh, to have the faith of Deborah and Daniel, to keep worshipping and following God at any cost.
As, the story goes on Deborah sends for a man named Barak and gave him a message from God saying to go to war against their oppressors and God would deliver them into the hands of the Israelites. Barak replied, "If you go with me, I will go; but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go." Deborah agreed to go with him but told him that because of this the glory of killing the general of the enemy army would be given to a woman. Arising from her place of council Deborah went with Barak and the army of Israel to face the Canaanite army.
Then Deborah said to Barak, “Go! This is the day the LORD has given Sisera(the enemy general) into your hands. Has not the LORD gone ahead of you?” Long story short, the Israelites massacred the Canaanite army and Sisera who escaped the battle was killed by a woman when he hid inside her tent.
Deborah, being a woman in the ancient world, could not command and army, but that did not stop her from working within the boundaries that God had put in her life to do great things, deliver God's people, and fulfill God's purpose for her life. She was fine with the limitations that God had given her and was willing to "share the spotlight" with Barak to complete the task which God had given them. "He could do nothing without her head, nor she without his hands; but both together made a complete deliverer, and effected a complete deliverance. The greatest and best are not self-sufficient, but need one another."
This is a hard lesson for anyone to learn. There are many times when I wish that I wasn't diagnosed with depression, or that I wasn't so shy or that I looked different and I have even wondered if I could be more use if I was the opposite gender. The thing is, God knew exactly what He was doing when He made me and you. He gave us our limitations and boundaries be they cultural, physical, emotional, or mental. He knows the limits placed on us and yet He still assigned us a great purpose to fulfill despite these things. That means that some boundaries we will have to conquer with His help and some limits we have to accept and work within them.
Deborah did not try to fight the rules that her society had placed upon her as a woman. Nowhere in her story do we see her complain about her gender or the role that came with it. Instead, she joined with someone without that particular limitation to help her get the job done. Like Deborah we have to sometimes be willing to step aside and let others help us in the tasks God has given us and remember to join with the one who has no limits, God.
There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.- Washington Irving
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