I was reading in the book of Judges today and came across something very interesting. It all starts when the Israelites were being oppressed (as usual... when are they not?) by this group of people called the Canaanites and especially the creepy evil comander of the army named Sisera (Who, for the purposes of this story, looked soemthing like this). Deborah is not exactly okay with all of this and so she sends for her right hand man, Barak, and tells him that God will be with him and will help him defeat the creepy evil Sisera and all of his army. Barak doesn't want to go by himself, but agrees to go if Deborah will go with him. To make a long story short, she agrees and before you know it, they're on the cusp of battle, looking down at the army. Here's the part that caught my eye. Right as Barak is going down the mountain heading towards this army (probably about to wet himself), it says this, "At Barak's advance, the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword, and Sisera abandoned his chariot and fled on foot." Notice how it says, "At Barak's advance..." God waited until he saw Barak being faithful to him before he did anything. This wasn't because God was somehow not "allowed" to do anything, as if there was some rule book that says he can't show his powers until we trust in him. I think he did it for Barak. If he had blown the calvary away while Barak was still sitting on the hill shaking in his boots, Barak would have certainly been impressed. But would he have learned the value of trusting in God? God gave Barak the opportunity to trust in him so that he could reward him for his faithfulness. Imagine how it would feel to be Barak, racing down that hill, only to watch God kicking Canaanite butt before your very eyes.
The moral of this story isn't trust in God and all your problems will go away. The moral is to have faith in God's plan. Things might not turn out the way you want them to, but you will always be rewarded in the end for the steps that you take towards God's promises to you.
