“I know what God wants me to do but I just cannot get round to doing it.”

IMPORTANT reading: BARAK – JUDGES chapters 4 verses 1-16

I suspect that many of us will have had personal experience of this inward struggle or witnessed others confronting it. Let us witness the experience of BARAK, an Old Testament Israelite leader, in the challenging days of the Judges. He was called upon by God to confront fearsome enemies in the persons of JABIN, king of Canaan, and SISERA, the commander of his army.

BARAK’S MISSION could not have been clearer: Deborah, a remarkable female judge, gave him God’s command: ‘Go and deploy troops at Mount Tabor; take with you ten thousand men’, Judges chapter 4 verse 6. THE OUTCOME OF HIS MISSION could not have been more certain: ‘and I WILL deliver him (Sisera) into your hand’, verse 7; indeed, he would be the winner in this battle before he even set a foot on the battlefield!

However, the tragedy was that he knew what he had to do BUT he could not get round to doing it! If you had looked for him on the battlefield, you would not have found him – he was in KEDESH (sanctuary) NAPHTALI (to wrestle / struggle). He ought to have been obeying God and gaining the victory on the battlefield, instead of struggling with Him in the sanctuary. Sadly, he even used Deborah as a ‘bargaining tool’. ‘If you go with me, then I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go’, Judges chapter 4 verse 8.

Deborah dealt with Barak sensitively and went with him, so that the enemy would be defeated by him. Nevertheless, she made it clear to him that his initial failure to take God at His word, meant that he lost out on any credit he might have received for His exploits, Judges chapter 5 verse 9.

Remember, there is a cost if we lose the struggle to do what we know God wants us to do!                                                                                       

To be continued