At Cascade Lodge, where we stayed on vacation last week, there is an outdoor chapel amongst the pines. This is the devotional I gave to my family there Sunday morning.

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So Israel has done evil and the Lord has given them into the hands of the Canaanites.  For 20 hard years.

And the Prophetess Deborah goes to the military leader Barak and says “God told you to attack them – why haven’t you?” and Barak says “I’ll go if you do”

And they attack this militarily strong army (fit with 900 iron chariots) and God uses circumstances and ordains that Israel conquers.

And when it is all done Deborah and Barak sing a song – a long song, but it begins with this:

That the leaders took the lead in Israel, that the people offered themselves willingly, bless the Lord!

I imagine these leaders, Barak especially, thinking – it didn’t have to go this way. I could have sat around and did nothing and we’d still be oppressed. But God chose that I would choose to go against this strong military force and we won.

Sometimes it takes a Woman to inspire the Man to do the right thing.

As a father who is married to a Deborah (who has often inspired me to do the right thing), their song resonates with me. It is my prayer that in five years, and ten years and one hundred years it will be said of our family:

That the parents took the lead in our family, that the children offered themselves willingly, bless the Lord!

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