Title Make your handicap your strength 2
Contents Last week, we looked at the birth handicap that Jephthah had. It hurts my heart to think of how painful and difficult it must have been for Jephthah to be so lowly as the son of a prostitute. If his wounded heart had led to a resentment towards his mother, who was a prostitute, and wasted his life, his life would have been shabby. But Jephthah, who was born as the son of a prostitute and grew up with all kinds of suffering, became the leader who saved the nation. This means that he overcame his handicap by faith. In order to lead a devastating war to victory, above all, it requires strong, valiant and valiant courage. Believe that Jephthah's handicap made him a strong warrior. In other words, his handicap turned into a strength that made him shine. Please believe that as long as the grace of God comes upon us, they will work together for good. I hope that you can be patient and believe that God has a good plan for you, no matter how difficult and difficult it may be right now. We hope to hear the following praise from you.
“You have done this for me so that I can see when I am weak, strong when I am poor and rich when I am blind.”
Jephthah had to live under the handicap of difficult circumstances (verse 3).
We consider birthdays to be a day of joyful and joyful blessings. But Jephthah's birthday was a sad and heartbreaking day. Because on his birthday, his brothers and sisters mocked and hated him even more. Just by looking at the record in verse 2 that Jephthah was driven out, you can guess how much sorrow Jephthah suffered from his family. The word ‘cast out’ here has the meaning of ‘separation’ and ‘expulsion’. In other words, it indicates a case of completely splitting. This means that the sons of Gilead's first wives drove Jephthah out of the cold and bitter. He used all kinds of threats and force to get Jephthah out of the house. Jephthah had to run away from his brothers.
Now it was Jephthah who had to live on his own. Living alone in a family-oriented society means struggling with indescribable difficulties and loneliness. As there is a saying that people live among themselves, people who were in a similar situation to Jephthah came to gather in the land where Jephthah lived. The Hebrew word translated ‘miscellaneous’ literally means ‘empty ones’. This tells us that they are in a disadvantaged situation where they cannot determine the purpose or direction of life. Since these people came to live together, how would their life have been? In verse 3, the literal translation of ‘they went out with him’ is ‘and they went out with him’.
The Hebrew word for ‘go out’ here is ‘yacha’, which is a word used to mean ‘to go to war’. Thus, it is clear that Jephthah and his men, who had no basis for living and were ostracized by society, lived by plundering around the area. Would you say I'm a mountain thief? But the fact that the elders of Gilead came to Jephthah and asked for help, it does not appear that Jephthah plundered his people Israel. If it had been Jephthah, the elders of Gilead would not have come. Rather, Jephthah and his men lived by plundering the enemies of Israel. As a result, Jephthah gained a reputation in his hometown as a military leader. Jephthah is seen as a man who had the strength and courage to face life's difficulties rather than avoid them. Rather than being frustrated by resentment and vengeance toward his brothers, rather than being pessimistic, the poor circumstances did not matter to Jephthah, just by looking at how he made himself a leader. Rather, he opened a successful life by persevering and overcoming his situation, considering the unfavorable environment as a foundation for tomorrow.
I hope that this story of Jephthah will give a challenge and hope to the youth who are suffering from family problems at this time. However, it is true that many young people are falling apart due to family problems. A bizarre incident occurred in May of last year when a drunken college student, Lee Gun, beat his parents to death with a hammer and dumped the corpse in a nearby park for despising him. Lee Gun was 163 meters tall and had an extremely inferior look to his appearance. I was bullied so much that I didn't have any friends I could talk to openly until I graduated from high school. Her father was from the maritime community, and her mother was from an orthopedic surgeon, but the marital relationship did not go well. The atmosphere in the house was cold enough to use each room since Lee was young.
It is said that his parents always compared him to his older brother, Lee-gun, and even compared him to other children and scolded him. When I was in school, I usually only packed my brother's lunch box, and he was so biased that he didn't even take care of Lee's birthday. Even when he was in the military, he said he never came to visit. He had never received praise or recognition from his parents, so he doubted whether he was actually his biological parent. It is said that the father raised his children in the military way, and he used contemptuous tones of his children, such as 'the size of a rattlesnake, a slug-like child'. Lee regarded his mother as a nervous hysterical patient. It is said that he grew up hearing words from his mother such as ‘a useless person, a person with no social skills and a small body, who can’t work properly, the sprouts are yellow, go out and die’. It is said that he received corporal punishment stronger than affection and interest to the extent that he was scolded for not eating quickly even when eating, and went to the bathroom with rice in his mouth and vomited.
It is said that when he slept, he was always possessed by a sense of victimization and slept with a screwdriver by the bedside. Lee said that a week before the crime, he confronted his parents for the first time because of discriminatory treatment with his older brother. However, it was dismissed and became more miserable, and from then on, he thought about killing his parents. In the end, he ended up killing his parents. Prof. Shim Min-seok (Seoul National University Neuropsychiatry), who conducted the psychological analysis of this case, and other members of the National Police Agency's criminal psychology analysis advisory committee concluded that Lee's crimes stemmed from the alienation he suffered from his friends while he was a student, the indifference of the teachers, and the excessive abuse of his parents. got off Lee Sang-hyeon (criminal psychology) professor at Dongguk University said, "Since childhood, the constant abuse and excessive control of my parents have led to deepening of internal conflicts and complexes, depression and escapism, and seemingly psychiatric situations such as suicide and urge to kill." It is a horrific murder drama that has a complex effect on hate, self-reward reward, and video imitation psychology.” What do you think? The Bible says the following:
“Beware that no one repays evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue good, whether to one another or to all” (1 Thessalonians 5:15).
“… We rejoice in tribulation, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance character, and character hope” (Romans 5:3,4).
That's right. Environment must not break us down. God told us to overcome and govern our environment, not to despair and collapse because of our environment. No matter how difficult and difficult the situation may be, believe that you can become a person who achieves your hopes if you believe in and persevere and overcome with the opportunity God has given you to make your hopes come true as in Romans 5:3,4.
3. Jephthah was a man who knew how to pray (verse 11).
conclusion