Dealing with devastation in the family business

Judges 2:16-20

In last week’s reflection, I laid out the full cycle of Israel and God’s interaction during the time of the judges. Now we’ll begin to look at individual judges, beginning with Gideon. But first, here is what life is like for Israel, just before Gideon is chosen, as Israel has been under control of the Midianites for seven years:

For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land, as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey. For they would come up with their livestock and their tents; they would come like locusts in number—both they and their camels could not be counted—so that they laid waste the land as they came in. And Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried out for help to the Lord. (Judges 6:3-6)

The devastation was overwhelming, and it happened over and over and over again as the harvest was ripe. What they worked for all season was destroyed, “laid waste,” by the hands of those that ruled them. The Israelites were physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained. They had no control of even the basic products and processes of their agricultural life.

For those that have seen my other writings on family business, I often reference “survival mode,” when the family business is just barely making it. The time when everything hangs by a thread, and the obstacles seem overwhelming. It isn’t the same as Israel’s experience, of course. But this feeling of total frustration, of desperation, this sense that your best efforts are not enough and that you have no control – I think every family or family business has gone through something similar at a point in their history.

Have you, or someone you know, ever experienced a feeling of utter devastation or total depletion in your family or family business? Have you asked, or “cried out” to God, for help amidst the storm, and what happened after?