Judges 11:29-33
The spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah and inspired him to attack Ammon quickly before they invaded. The thing that God inspired Jephthah to do was successful. It was not necessary for Jephthah to make a deal with God, he was already doing God's will. But Jephthah, like all of us, had some ideas of his own.
I don't know what he was thinking, promising to sacrifice the first thing that came out of his house. It can hardly have been a sheep, goat, ox or dove. These are the things that God permitted the Israelites to sacrifice. Jephthah made an absurd promise, it was almost impossible for him to righteously follow through with it.
Sometimes in the heat of the moment, we make foolish decisions. What we do with the consequences says a lot about our character. But so does the kind of decision we make without thinking. In the case of Jephthah, he had a kind of religious devotion, but it was a bit egotistical. He was willing to make big promises, and be the big man of the moment. But he was not inclined to promise God the things that He had asked for. (See for example Leviticus 7)
Many times we Christians are like that today. We sing songs full of great promises to God and hold meetings that are supposedly to worship God. But unless we are actually giving God the service that He has asked for in His Word, we may as well stay home.
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