I often give thanks for the people in my life because they all encourage me to stretch to be a better person. I had the privilege today of sitting with a group of godly high school administrators discussing our beliefs and how the pandemic will change us and change the world. Understand that in the field of education (especially in administration) a conversation like this is rare. I could be biased, but it dawned on me in the middle of this conversation that because of who and what we are, we have been under a form of persecution since we started the job. Give credit to the Lord that despite the difficult personalities, micro-management methodologies, and stagnant processes, we have maintained our integrity and not sacrificed ourselves. Through it all, we know our strengths and weakness, but our faith has never wavered.
From the sixteenth chapter of Judges, the story of Samson became a topic for us today. One of our administrators presented the question, “Did it ever occur to you that Samson was not a man with an extraordinary physique? He wasn’t a bodybuilder type; he was an average man. So when he was able to defeat the masses, people wanted to know where this man of ordinary build got his strength.” Have you ever wondered what Samson may have looked like? I asked a friend and she said the same thing that I have always thought, “Samson was a big, hulking, burly guy with lots of hair.”
Hmmmm….something to think about. The story of Samson struck me because he never lived up to his calling because of his weakness: Delilah. Let’s pause and think about the way that we are living. What’s your weakness? Who’s your weakness? We can live our lives in such a way (disobedience) that the Lord is not with us. Here’s what we can’t take for granted: God’s mercy and grace. Make no mistake about it; the Lord has not left us, but we have chosen to walk away from Him. We have no sense of discernment until our weakness in sin is exposed. Has there ever been a time in your life when you knew that you had walked away from God and He was not with you? Have you been so caught up in your feelings that you could not see the truth right in front of you? Has the damage in your life been caused by (not the lies that people tell you) the lies that you tell yourself? Whew! Let’s look at Samson’s weakness.
What does your Samson look like? We all know about the great love story of Samson and Delilah. Samson was a man full of strength who had one downfall: women. Who better than Delilah to use her womanly wiles to ensnare Samson and get the truth behind his strength? Samson thinks he’s in love, and Delilah is “the One.” Remember this, God speaks truth to us, not to our feelings or in our feelings. Because we are human, we do have emotions, but in our feelings, we may not see things rationally. In our feelings, we are prone to make poor choices because we have on the blinders of our hearts. In our feelings, we justify our thoughts and actions (regardless of whether there is truth in them). In our feelings, we can lose perspective and create answers that are not biblically sound. Here is the hard question for you, “Have you ever known that something or someone was not good for you but you choose to allow your feelings to justify your actions? And even at this time, you still believe that God is with you?” Samson did at great cost because his desire for Delilah was bigger than his heart for God. I spoke about this very action in a previous entry entitled Who Do We Serve. When we choose to give our priority and devotion to something or someone else, we refer to this action as idolatry. Oh, Samson!
How do we lose our way? Let’s look at Samson. He was a Nazarite which meant that 1) He could not touch a dead body; 2) He could not drink alcohol, and 3) He could not shave his hair. These three rules seem pretty straightforward, but when the element of love is added, the rules get skewed. In the case of Samson, he totally missed the purpose of his calling which was to lead the Israelite army against the Philistines. Pastor Howard-JohnWesley of Alfred Street Baptist Church said, “The power is given (to Samson) to fulfill the divine purpose, the anointing is for the assignment, and the strength is for the battle he must go through.” Samson did not lead the army; instead, he used his calling to exact revenge, to party and to womanize. When we choose to not live up to our calling because our sinful nature has distracted us, how are our lives impacted and how are others influenced? For Samson, his wife was given to another man. In anger, he burned all of the crops of the Philistines, and they responded by killing his wife and her father. Somehow, that’s not leading the Israelites to defeat the Philistines; it seems that “the pot” is being stirred to make the Philistines angrier.
We understand that Samson had a calling, and he was a Nazirite subjected to three basic rules, but Samson failed to abide by those rules. Samson killed a lion, went back touched it and drew honey from the dead carcass; 2) he attended a seven-day wedding celebration in Canaan where wine was served, and 3) He gets a hair cut. Boy, when Samson did not carry out his calling, he did it in a very bold, non-compliant fashion. How often do we decide that we are going to ignore God’s calling and do what we want to do? How has that worked out for you? In our flesh, we fall prey to our emotions. Answer this question. How many times have the “red flags” or signs been right in front of us, but because of our overwhelming feeling of love we have chosen to ignore them? Samson knew, and he wasn’t blind. From the very beginning with the riddle, Delilah nagged him until she got the answer. Once she got the answer, she told it to her people. Every time the Philistine leaders devised a plan to bring Samson down and he overcame, Delilah continued to nag him about his strength. Samson knew that this woman was working against him, and she knew that in his blind love she could wear him down emotionally. Is this happening to us? In our blindness, are we missing God’s calling, failing to see the obvious, or succumbing to emotional harassment?
When we choose to walk away from God, we are left to wander and make our way. The story of Samson seems like an Old Testament version of the Prodigal Son. After the prodigal son leaves his father and lives a life of his on doing, he recognizes that his choices have landed him in the trough with the pigs. In his moment of clarity, he recognizes that he needs his father and returns home to open arms. The symbolism of running to the father’s opened arms is a representation that God never leaves us, and He is standing and waiting with opened arms when we realize that we need Him. Samson has his moment of clarity as his hair starts to grow again, and he prays to fulfill God’s calling through prayer for strength one last time as he brings down the pillars and temple of the Philistines. Samson’s lesson reminds us that we can’t allow distractions (including emotions) to disconnect us from God. We can’t live the way that we would like and think that God is with us when we have chosen to walk away. We must be mindful of our calling and remember the calling may not look the way that we have always imagined that it would. We must see the truth and not justify the lies. How can we learn and apply Samson’s lessons to our lives?
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