"When God is going to do something wonderful," author Anne Lamott claims, "God always starts with a hardship; when God is going to do something amazing, God starts with an impossibility."1 All of those ingredients are present in our lesson from the book of Judges. The people were experiencing a crisis, a time of great stress thinking doom was all but inevitable. The situation appeared hopeless and impossible until God raised up the right person to meet the challenge head on.

Time and time again, the ancient Israelites failed when they turned their backs against God. We see this pattern repeated throughout the books of Joshua and Judges. The people of old just did not seem to "get it" succumbing to the same mistakes over and over again. As our lesson opens we find that, "The Israelites aga…