The Price Of Negotiations

Jephthah is a fellow who pays a big price for negotiating with his God to get something.
His God is a kind of mythic-magic warrior God who can deliver Jephthah's enemies into his hands.  Jephthah lives in a warrior world full of enemies who must be subdued.  So he calls upon his God for assistance and makes a negotiated deal.  If God delivers and Jephthah wins, then he will offer in burnt sacrifice the first person who comes out of his house to greet him after victory.  He does battle and wins.  He figures that his oath demands he pay up.  The first person who comes out to greet him from his house is his only child, his daughter, a virgin teen.  Oops! Bad deal for Jephthah and worse one for his daughter.  But he pays up and offers her as a burnt sacrifice to his God.  It still goes on today in religion.  People kill other people not of their religion, asking their God for help, and think that God is on their side, or they will please their God with killing.  But to a lesser extent, are some of us not doing the negotiations with God to get something that really is all about us?  Or we judge something really good, and God must want it too, when in fact it simply fits our own self-focused agenda?  Are we not sometimes willing to sell out or ignore the innocent, the powerless, the marginalized, in order to protect our own turf, security or comfort?  All my God asks of me is to be in line with Love, and be in service to others.  The sacrifice is my self-centeredness.