I started reading in Judges this morning . . . a period in Israel’s history marked by a distinct and vicious cycle. The people sin by worshiping foreign gods . . . God punishes them by sending an enemy nation to fight them and oppress them . . . the Israelites eventually cry out to God in repentance . . . God raises up a deliverer, a judge who subdues their enemy . . . a time of peace and rest rules the land while the judge is alive . . then the cycle starts over again. For fans of alliteration, two outlines have been suggested to summarize the Judges stage: Rebellion, retribution, repentance, restoration, or; Sin, servitude, supplication, and salvation. Regardless of how you try and package it, it was a low period and who can’t help but wonder, “What happened?”

And looking for the simple answer, the “who’s to blame” answer, I lock on the following:

And all [Joshua’s] generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that He had done for Israel.   (Judges 2:10 ESV)

At first, it seems like there was this massive failure on part of the conquering generation of Joshua to pass onto their children the things of the Lord and His mighty works on behalf of Israel. And I find myself wanting to go to some application that points out the importance of one generation passing the baton to the next. And while I think that is true and needs to happen . . . I don’t think Israel’s cycle of sin is explained so simply.

Maybe when it says that they didn’t “know” the Lord, that is wasn’t so much that they didn’t “know about” or hadn’t been taught about God . . . but that they did not know Him experientially . . . they weren’t the ones who had seen God work first hand in delivering the land. Head knowledge only gets you so far in walking faithfully for the Lord. At some point the follower of God needs to actually “taste and see that the Lord is good” for themselves.

I’m wondering if at the core of their failure was the fact that what they did know about God, they chose not to act on. What they had been taught concerning their calling was not pursued . . . the truth that had been advertised about the promises was not personally purchased. Instead they sampled the world and its gods and lost their grip on the faith of their fathers.

It wasn’t just about how well the baton was handed off to the next generation, it was about how well that generation received it. Passing the baton is one half of the process . . . gripping it . . . holding tightly to it . . . passionately pursuing it . . . that’s the other half.

And so God determines not to drive out the nations around Israel that He might test them . . . whether they will take care to walk in the way of the LORD or pursue the passing pleasures of the world around them (2:21-22) . . . whether they will grip tightly the baton or chose to run another race.

It’s the grip that matters. It’s the grip that indicates how seriously I desire to run the race . . . how earnest I am about taking what’s been passed on and running with it. When tested by the allure of the nations around me, mine is to seek to hold tightly. When tempted to give up on the race, mine is to press on for the prize . . . to run in a way so as to win.

Mine is to grip the baton . . . knowing that it’s a grip I’m able to sustain by God’s grace . . . desiring that it’s a grip that will be used of God for His glory . . .