Judges 10:6-10: a reflection

6The children of Israel again did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, and served the Baals, the Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines. They abandoned the LORD, and didn’t serve him. 7The LORD’s anger burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the children of Ammon. 8They troubled and oppressed the children of Israel that year. For eighteen years they oppressed all the children of Israel that were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead. 9The children of Ammon passed over the Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was very distressed. 10The children of Israel cried to the LORD, saying, “We have sinned against you, even because we have forsaken our God, and have served the Baals.”

The book of Judges keeps repeating a sad cycle, and here it turns again. Israel abandons the LORD and serves a whole catalog of other gods; God allows them to fall under oppression; and this time it takes eighteen long years of being crushed before they finally do the one thing that begins the way back: they cry out to God and confess, we have sinned against you, because we have forsaken our God.

Notice two things. First, how long it took. Eighteen years of oppression before they turned. They endured the consequences of forsaking God for the better part of a generation before finally admitting the truth. We can be like that, persisting in a wrong direction, absorbing its bad fruit for years, before we are finally brought low enough to confess. Second, notice what the turning looks like when it finally comes: not excuses, not blaming circumstances, but honest confession, we have sinned; we have forsaken you.

That honest confession is where restoration begins, and it need not take eighteen years. Whatever we have forsaken God for, the way back does not start with fixing our circumstances but with telling God the truth: we have sinned. If you have been persisting in something, feeling its consequences, waiting, the invitation is not to endure more years first but to make the honest confession now. You do not have to wait until you are crushed. Cry out, admit the truth, we have sinned, and begin the way back today.

Lord, your people endured eighteen years of oppression before they finally confessed. Keep me from persisting so long in a wrong direction, absorbing its bad fruit, before I turn. Where I have forsaken you, help me make the honest confession now, not excuses, but we have sinned, and to begin the way back today rather than wait until I am crushed.