God lists Samson and Jephthah in His Hall of Faith. That should give all of us hope.
Jephthah made a rash vow that cost him dearly, a moment of poorly considered words spoken in a high-pressure moment that cannot be undone. Samson’s story is even more publicly catastrophic: a man of supernatural strength who repeatedly surrendered that strength to his weaknesses, who was deceived by a woman he loved, stripped of his gift, blinded, and chained to a grinding stone in his enemy’s prison. These are not tidied-up stories with minor flaws. These are lives marked by significant, consequential failure.

When God called Gideon a mighty man of valour, Gideon was hiding in a winepress.
That is not a minor detail. A winepress was a sunken pit used to crush grapes, not a military staging ground, not a watchtower, not a place anyone of valour would normally be found. Gideon was there because he was afraid of the Midianites, threshing wheat in secret so they would not see it and take it. And into that pit, into that fear, into that hiding place, the angel of the Lord appeared and said: the Lord is with you, you mighty man of valour.

Rahab had every reason not to be in this chapter. She is here anyway.
She was a Gentile, an outsider to the covenant community of Israel. She was a woman in a culture where women’s stories were rarely elevated. She was a prostitute, a profession that placed her at the margins of any society’s moral framework. And she had spent her whole life in Jericho, the very city that was about to be destroyed. By every measure of the day, Rahab was not a candidate for the Hall of Faith.