When I was growing up, our family vacations were often camping at national and state parks. There’s something glorious and gritty about setting up a tent and sleeping beneath a star-studded sky. The intoxicating perfume of the forest calms my spirit like a weighted blanket and helps me rest.

A few weeks ago, my oldest and I went camping, just the two of us. I anticipated this special trip with my young adult daughter, who will be heading off to college this fall. We planned to hike a waterfall in the national park, read books in hammocks, cook dinner and roast s’mores over the fire, and enjoy some quality time relaxing together.

However, when we arrived at our campsite, we were met with an unexpected challenge. 

We pulled our bin of camping gear out of our pickup truck. My girl doesn’t waste time. She got right to work laying out the tent and setting up the poles. All of a sudden she looked at me with wild eyes.

“Mom, we are missing a pole!”

“There’s no way!” I replied quizzically.

This was a new tent, and we had just used it the weekend before. But sure enough, I walked over and saw three corners of the tent standing tall while the fourth corner flopped down on the ground. We searched the bags and the car, but there was no pole.

Then we both went into problem-solving mode. My girl suggested we tie the tent to a tree or sleep in our trusty truck. 

I started to imagine our tent collapsing on us midway through the night. Then I started calculating how long it might take us to drive home to retrieve the pole. Of course, we weren’t even sure the pole was at home and didn’t have cell service to call my husband. 

Then I got a lightbulb idea. What if we used one of the skinnier poles designed to hold up the rain fly at the entrance and jerry-rigged it to work as one of the large poles? My daughter was skeptical, but I asked her to let me try it.

I folded the skinnier pole in half at the joint and doubled it up to strengthen it. Much to our delight, the pole fit in with the other poles and was able to bear the weight of the fourth corner of our tent.

As I watched my daughter get to work pounding the pegs into the loops of the tent to secure it to the ground, I started thinking about the story of Deborah and Jael in the book of Judges. 

The time of the judges was like a spin cycle in your washing machine with dirty laundry whirling round and round on repeat. God’s people, and particularly the leaders, continued to turn away from Him. When they rebelled, He allowed them to be taken by the enemy. They cried out in repentance. In response, He often sent a surprising and merciful rescue. And then somehow they found themselves right back in the cycle again, turning toward the idols that lured them away from God in the first place. 

During this time, there was a standout judge named Deborah who was a prophetess and revered leader. Deborah, whose name comes from the word “bee” in Hebrew, was like a queen bee who served God faithfully when many of the male leaders did not step up.

One day God calls on Deborah to challenge and support the Israelite leader Barak in a battle against Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army. Jabin is the wicked king of Canaan. Both he and his sidekick Sisera seem to have Barak shaking in his boots. 

Barak said to Deborah, “If you go with me, I will go; but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go.” 

“Certainly I will go with you,” said Deborah. “But because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be yours, for the LORD will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.”
Judges 4:8-9 NIV

Deborah and Barak set out for battle at Mount Tabor with ten thousand men. Their army overtakes all of Sisera’s army and chariots. Then Sisera panics and flees the scene on foot.

He goes to hide in the tent of a woman named Jael, whose family were known allies to King Jabin. Jael invites Sisera into her tent to hide, and strategically gives him milk to drink and a place to rest. While he’s sleeping, she courageously drives a tent peg through his temple into the ground, and he dies.

This mama knew her true alliance was to Israel. Just as Deborah prophesied, Sisera “falls into the hands of a woman.” Jael is praised for her valiant act in Deborah’s song as “most blessed of women” (Judges 5:24) — a phrase used in the New Testament to describe Mary, Jesus’s mother. 

The violence in this story always makes me wince, but when I think about Jael’s bravery I’m inspired.

She used her resources and everyday skills to defeat the enemy. 

Both Deborah and Jael were wise, strategic, and courageous women who God used in extraordinary ways to lead and rescue His people. 

Friend, it’s unlikely that God will call you and me to take out a warrior with a tent peg, but He can use our strategic minds, our creative hands, and our discerning hearts for His glory.

Dorina helps people discover God’s glory in unexpected places. Subscribe to Dorina’s Glorygram here for details about her coming Bible study, Redeemer: God’s Lovingkindness in the Book of Ruth.

 

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