Resolve, a Blessed Virtue

Who is most blessed among women? “The Virgin Mary,” all the good little Christians happily answer. And they’d be right. That phrase from Scripture brings joy and images of the angel Gabriel pronouncing Mary to being highly favored and Mary’s cousin Elizabeth recognizing the mother of her Lord. Was God clueless when He records in Scripture that Mary is “most blessed” knowing full well that phrase was originally applied to Jael, Heber’s wife (Judges 4:15-5:31)? Nope. God knew exactly what He was doing. Maybe it’s because of the Tiny Virtue called Resolve … and what it means in combatting evil.

Many Bible commentators don’t like Jael very much.

They fail to see her resolve. 

Blessed among women and used by God in fulfillment of prophecy gets cast away wholesale because she was a woman, treacherous and vile, a calculating murderer, and assassin.

And to boot, she was called that by another woman Deborah in a song, probably with contemporary lyrics.

The Bible, they say, contains all kinds of words that don’t reflect the heart of God but were just truthful records of what evil people spoke. Deborah, they say, wasn’t like a real prophetess anyway.

And women, well, you know that they’ve always been responsible for the evil in this world ever since Eve seduced Adam.

Y-e-ah…

Maybe the reason that God applied that phrase to Mary through Gabriel and Elizabeth and then Mary echoed it herself in The Magnificat is because Mary understood that she was the vessel through whom God would bring His Son to destroy that which was evil in this world.

She was blessed in this historic moment of conceiving and birthing the Messiah who would be victorious over evil!  Long awaited deliverance, because Satan has desired to take down God’s people ever since Eden. To God and to Mary, Jael wasn’t a woman to be thrown away or thrown in jail. She had resolve—a Tiny Virtue –and was a role model for all who would desire to be exemplary Christians.

Do you think Mary needed the encouragement that women braved things for God going way back? To take a stand against evil and to be used by God to do powerful things to further His Kingdom? Certainly I’m glad that God hasn’t called me to do the tent-peg thing, but one doesn’t have to hold a hammer to show resolve in faith, in obedience, and in doing one’s part to battle evil with the sword of the Spirit.

God values resolve and rewards it in those who fear Him.  

The LORD Almighty has sworn, ‘Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand.’” Isaiah 14:24

Ponder today: How is resolve a virtue when applied toward what is good but terrible when devoted to evil? Does your confidence in discerning what is good contribute to…or diminish your resolve?

Bible character of the day: Jael