Save Me but Leave Me Alone

Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you bring me home again to fight against the Ammonites, and the LORD gives them over to me, I will be your head.” Judges 11:9

In clinic, it’s not uncommon to meet a smoker with a respiratory illness, suffering with wheezing and shortness of breath. I can usually prescribe medications that improve this particular illness, but if they keep smoking, the wheezing and shortness of breath are going to get worse with each passing year until they suffocate from it. Most of the time, they don’t want to talk about smoking cessation, but I must try. I’ve found that often, it is in the misery caused by smoking, that people are willing to consider change. Can we talk about smoking? Occasionally though, I’ll meet someone who is frank enough to bluntly tell me – I’m not going to quit. Just make me feel better. They want me to save them from the right-now symptoms but they’re not willing to make any changes themselves.

It’s hard for me to be too critical of this mindset. It’s exactly how I once approached God. God, take my drug use away. Save me from the disaster of me, but I don’t want to have to do anything. I didn’t literally say that of course, but it was my mindset. I wanted my appetite for the drug to be magically removed, but I remained unwilling to make any sacrifice or to do anything God asked. Save me but leave me alone.

God saves us from ourselves as we follow him. That’s the lesson from today’s passage. In the story, the community who had once run Jephthah off, now needed him back because of his abilities as a warrior. When they came to him, asking him to fight off the attacking Ammonites, Jephthah wisely made this prerequisite – If I save you, then you must follow me (my paraphrase).

Often, we go to God, asking him to fix just one part of our lives. We see him as a genie-in-a-bottle, existing only to grant our wishes. God though, made us to live in a loving father-child relationship in which we follow his will. When we go to him in our distress, he uses those trials to convince us to change and to follow him. Often though, our approach is like the smoker in clinic – Make me feel better but leave me alone.

Thankfully, God didn’t remove my drug appetite until I made a genuine effort to follow him. It was only in obedience that I’ve been able to experience the life for which I was created. I like my new life. So, daily now, I’ll continue to follow him as he daily saves me from myself.