Judges Chapter 10 - Open Our Ears to His Teachings

God constantly let the Israelites fall, and lets us face trials today so that we can grow as Christians.

True repentance

Here in Judges 10, we find that, yet again, the Israelites fall to sin. Back in RE classes, when we were learning about the Israelites, I often found two things incredibly ridiculous— the Israelite’s continuous cycle of sin, and how God always gave them another chance. As a student, I wasn’t able to understand why these cycles kept happening. Why did the Israelites continue falling from God, even after learning their lesson? And why did God keep allowing them to come back into His grace?

However, as I grew older, I realised that repeating our mistakes is incredibly human. Oftentimes, I find myself mindlessly going through bad habits even though I tell myself it’s wrong, or succumbing to pressure from others around me, even when listening to their advice isn’t pleasing to God. It’s easy in theory, but in practice, not falling to our own cycles of sin is extremely difficult.

Instead of despising their continual struggle with sin, we should learn from the Israelites here to be truly repentant. Such true repentance does not manifest only in words. Just like how the Israelites discarded their idols (v16), we also should get rid of our distractions and bad habits (something I very much struggle with). Repentance is something we do actively. Rather than passively receiving forgiveness, we should make an effort, like the Israelites here, to change.

It is in this innate sin we have in our hearts that makes God’s love and forgiveness to the Israelites all the more beautiful. My dad used to illustrate God’s love like that of a Father loving His child. Babies are immensely flawed, and incredibly helpless. Why would we love such useless and almost “parasitic” creatures? Yet, our Heavenly Father still takes care of us, despite our countless mistakes and errors, all while reprimanding us gently.

Any father would not be able to bear their children’s suffering. He, too, empathises with our misery. In fact, Judges 10 records that He “could bear Israel’s misery no longer” and as such, gave them victory over the Ammonites. But God constantly let the Israelites fall, and lets us face trials today so that we can grow as Christians. (James 1:2-4) What we have to do is simply to open our ears to His teachings. These trials are not for nothing— He has planned our every day, for a purpose. (Psalms 139:16)

“Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.

And in Your book they all were written,

The days fashioned for me,

When as yet there were none of them.”