20th.: Samson, “Help Lord!”
Samson showed so much strength, so many times, that he got cocky.
In a weak moment, Delilah, his mistress, defeated him (Judges 16:4-21).
Blind.
In prison.
Menial Labor.
Time.
Pain helps to humble a man.
In the meantime, his hair grew back.
After some time the Philistines called for Samson to come into their arena.
They wanted to have some fun with him.
Samson’s last prayer was, “O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once,
O God, that I may be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.” (Judges 16:28).
With this request, God gave him strength to destroy the arena.
He killed an additional 3,000 Philistines, and himself, in the process.
Although seemingly a large number, killing over 4,000 Philistines
in his life time did not stop the Philistines from ruling over the Israelites.
Could Samson have done much more in terms of defeating the Philistines,
if he had spent more time in prayer, developing with God a better strategy to use his strength?
As it was, Samson went from one seemingly rash deed to another.
As a mystifying caveat, the word ‘seemingly’ is used, because Judg. 14:41 qualified one of Samson’s actions as, “it was of the Lord.”
The Lord had caused an event in Judges 14 to happen, even though it looked unwise and against the Jewish Law.
Sometimes, the Lord causes thing to happen that perplexes us – so that we keep turning back to Him,
and not trust our own understanding of the way things ought to work.