Judges 11:1-6: a reflection

1Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor. He was the son of a prostitute. Gilead became the father of Jephthah. 2Gilead’s wife bore him sons. When his wife’s sons grew up, they drove Jephthah out and said to him, “You will not inherit in our father’s house, for you are the son of another woman.” 3Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Outlaws joined up with Jephthah, and they went out with him. 4After a while, the children of Ammon made war against Israel. 5When the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah out of the land of Tob. 6They said to Jephthah, “Come and be our chief, that we may fight with the children of Ammon.”

Jephthah's beginnings were against him. He was the son of a prostitute, and his half-brothers, the sons of their father's wife, drove him out, denying him any inheritance because of his birth: You shall not inherit in our father's house, for you are the son of another woman. Rejected and disowned, Jephthah fled and lived as an outcast. And yet, when Israel was threatened by the Ammonites, it was to this very man, the one they had cast out, that the elders of Gilead came, begging him to lead them.

Notice the reversal. The one rejected became the one needed; the outcast his brothers had driven away became the leader who would deliver them. Jephthah's shameful origins and his rejection by others did not disqualify him in God's purposes; the man cast aside was the one God would use to save Israel. What others discarded, God took up.

That is a pattern woven all through Scripture: God uses the rejected, the overlooked, the ones others cast aside. A shameful past, a lowly origin, rejection by others, these do not disqualify a person from being used by God; often it is precisely the rejected whom God raises up. If you feel disqualified by your background, your failures, or the way others have cast you aside, take heart from Jephthah. What others discard, God can take up and use. Your origins and others' rejection do not determine your usefulness to God, who delights to raise up the very ones the world casts away.

Lord, Jephthah was the son of a prostitute, driven out by his brothers and denied his inheritance, and yet he was the one you raised up to deliver Israel; the rejected became the leader they needed. When I feel disqualified by my background, my failures, or the way others have cast me aside, take heart into me from Jephthah. What others discard, you can take up and use. Help me believe that my origins and others' rejection do not determine my usefulness to you, who delight to raise up the very ones the world casts away. Use me, Lord, not because I am worthy, but because you take up what others throw away.