Did it surprise you that Jephthah kept his vow to God?

“At that time the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he went throughout the land of Gilead and Manasseh, including Mizpah in Gilead, and from there he led an army against the Ammonites.  And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord. He said, “If you give me victory over the Ammonites,  I will give to the Lord whatever comes out of my house to meet me when I return in triumph. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.” Judges 11: 29-31

What, or who did he expect to come out of his house to greet him after his victory? An animal, a servant? Surely not his daughter! Only, "When Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, his daughter came out to meet him, playing on a tambourine and dancing for joy. She was his one and only child; he had no other sons or daughters.  When he saw her, he tore his clothes in anguish. “Oh, my daughter!” he cried out. “You have completely destroyed me! You’ve brought disaster on me! For I have made a vow to the Lord, and I cannot take it back.” Judges 11:34-35

Surely Jephthah hadn’t expected his daughter to be the first one to greet him, but God knew! He could see that day as clearly as he saw into Jephthah’s heart and knew him to be a great man of honor and integrity. He knew Jephthah would keep his vow even if it meant giving God his most prized procession.

We all know the Lord’s enemy well enough to believe he had to have come and whispered in Japhthah ear, “What if your wife comes first? What if it’s your daughter? What if…? We can be confident he was doing all he could to keep Jephthah from keeping him from being the honorable man he was and keeping his vow to God during those days on the battle field and even after the victory.

The writer of Judges is careful to let us know that this was his only child.  He also allowed us to see Jephthah anguish when he sees his daughter come out celebrating, but he doesn’t permit us to see further into all Japhthah endured fulfilling his promise to God. We can only speculate what Jephthah felt that fateful day as he had to sacrifice his daughter and how he felt everyday afterwards until this life was over for him.

All parents have gained a bit of a glimpse of how that day must have been every time,

Some of us may know exactly how Japhthah felt to have to bury his child and try to figure out how he’ll manage to live life without her, for that’s just not suppose to happen. All of these are known as release points, and I’m sure you can probably think of others you’ve had to live through.

When my children were little, I prayed for them each day; I’d pray for their day, their health, walk, etc. I even prayed for their future spouses and children! And often The Lord would come as I was praying for “my" children, and whisper, “Whose children, Sue?” and I’d answer back, “Mine”. He knew my heart; therefore I figured there was no point in compounding my sin by lying. Sure, I was very thankful to Him for giving them to me, but for now they were mine!

I even discovered a cleaver way to get around having these constant discussions with Him. I decided I could avoid saying, “mine” or “yours”, by simply praying for them by name. I honestly thought I had cleverly outsmarted God! (Can you imagine?)  

That was until one day, I had to board a plane that would take me thousands of miles away from “my children” to live. They were both adults according to the law, but they were still my babies and children were supposed to leave home, not the other way around. The walk to the plane was the longest, hardest steps I’ve ever had to take. It felt like I had cinder-blocks tied to my feet and I was walking through at least a foot of wet cement! The Lord was right there, “Keep going, don’t look back, one more step and then another.”   I managed to keep it all together until we walked into our new home; where I no longer had to try to be strong and the tears just burst forth, and kept coming.

Last photo taken before our move to TN in '99

I went through about a nine month period of mourning. Every day I’d put on my happy face and tried my best to make it through each day without letting on that my heart was broken on the inside. That was, until finally one day, the revelation hit me that an entire year would go by before we could all be under one roof as a family once more, and then for only one week.

I sank down to the floor in my sitting room and the "Martha" in me came out! “Lord, don’t you care!?” (Luke 10:40) How could He make me suffer so? Wasn’t He supposed to be a loving God? (It was NOT one of my proudest moments) BUT, The Lord answered back immediately, “This is why I was asking you to give your children back to Me all those times, so many years ago. I knew this day was coming, and I was trying to spare you this pain.”

I learned two very important lessons that day, actually three:

1.)    Our children are His! In truth everything we’ve been given is simply on loan for a time. We would do well to constantly be mindful of this fact, and be good stewards of all we’ve been given.

2.)    He truly loves us and always has our very best interests at heart, even when things don’t make any sense at the moment. He can be trusted.

3.)    He can walk with us through hardships because He knows the blessings that lie ahead. Both of my children are married to their best friends today! The Lord has given us  seven grandchildren (#8 arrives in August) and all of us now live only 10 minutes from one another in the same county! Our home is our grand’s second home!

That day, I realized that I had trusted God for my salvation, but I had never made Him Lord of my life, for I was still trying to be in charge. That day I trusted Him not only with the children He had given me, but with my life as well.

I’m sure The Lord helped Japhthah walk through those days and years afterwards. And I’m sure both he and his daughter are worshiping The Lord together today. I loved how the author mentions that a custom came about because of the two of them, (This became a custom in Israel—That the daughters of Israel went yearly to mourn the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.) for I’ll bet as the daughters remembered the daughter of Jephthah, their fathers were remembering his integrity.

God's faithfulness 19 years later!