Dear Dad, Do You Want to Make a Difference?
Portraits of Faith
He gets one verse. One.
No backstory. No origin chapter. No dramatic call from God at a burning bush. Just this: “After him was Shamgar the son of Anath, who killed six hundred men of the Philistines with an ox goad; and he also delivered Israel.” (Judges 3:31)
That’s it. The third judge of Israel gets two sentences in the entire Bible—and then the story moves on.
Oh, he gets an honorable mention in Judges 5:6, “In the days of Shamgar son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were deserted; travelers took to the byways.”
But don’t skip past him too quickly. Because Shamgar may be the most important portrait of faith you’ll ever meet. He’s the patron saint of nobodies who became somebodies. The Bible is full of them—men and women who simply fulfilled their life’s call and obeyed God no matter the outcome. They didn’t feel special. They didn’t feel significant. They just showed up.
Now you might be thinking, Well, I’ve had a shaky start. Or a messy middle. That doesn’t disqualify you. A shaky start has never disqualified anyone from a faithful finish.
Joshua Hugh was a dad and farmer in a small town in Indiana. Strong man. Humble heart. He loved his wife and four sons deeply. The farm had been passed down from his in-laws, and Joshua worked it every day—planting crops, providing a livelihood, building a future.
One day, he made the decision to invest in a herd of pigs. He knew that if one harvest failed, the farm would be in jeopardy. So, he took out a mortgage against the property to buy the hogs, then purchased a batch of cholera vaccine to protect his investment.
The vaccine was bad. Every hog died. And that cost him his farm.
Now here’s where most of us would come unglued. But Joshua Hugh was a man of faith. He wouldn’t blame the man who sold him the bad batch. He wouldn’t curse his luck. He gathered his sons and told them something they never forgot: “Blaming, cursing, hating doesn’t help you—it hurts you.”
So how do you bring your best when life hands you its worst?
You can’t fix yesterday. You can’t control tomorrow. But you can change today. And God, in His mercy, may have been preparing you for this exact moment. By the way, that’s usually when it happens—right when you least expect it.
Shamgar had no sword. No army. No battle plan. He had a farming tool—a long wooden pole with a sharpened end used to poke animals and scrape plows. That was it. Six hundred Philistines and an ox goad. The odds were absurd.
But God has never been bothered by bad odds.
Jesus said it plainly: “Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34). Take no thought for tomorrow. Forget the odds stacked against you. Just be faithful with the ox goad in your hand today.
You may have never heard of Joshua Hugh. That could be because I left off his last name. Joshua Hugh Wooden. He was the wonderful father of one of the best, (I think the best), basketball coaches, John Wooden.
Legendary basketball coach John Wooden led the UCLA Bruins to ten NCAA championships and four undefeated seasons. He once wrote, “I urge you: let a large heart determine your efforts.”
That’s what Shamgar did. That’s what Joshua Hugh did. And that’s what God is asking of you.
You may only get one verse. But one verse, lived faithfully, can deliver a nation or raise a generational leader. Isn’t that what all dads do?
Keep Looking Up!
Heaven is closer than you think.
May God bless your day.
Related devotionals: Psalm 1 for men · Joseph (Matthew 1) · Why bad things happen to good people
Want more from Pastor Rodney?
If today’s devotional spoke to your heart, my books carry these same themes deeper. Stories of God moving in ordinary lives, scripture for tired pastors and weary parents, and steady reminders that heaven is closer than you think.