“Sin binds. Sin blinds. Sin grinds.” I remember the rhyme from my professor Dr. Harry Hunt. The story of Samson is ultimately a tragic story. Though he defeated the Philistines, he flouted God’s instructions for his life.
Under Nazirite rules, given to his parents by the angel, Samson was not allowed to cut his hair or touch anything dead. His story shows him getting honey from a lion’s carcass and sharing the secret of his strength with Delilah. When she shaved his head, he thought he could fight his enemies as before. But without God, Samson was powerless, like any other person.
Samson flirted with danger until disaster overtook him. Sometimes God uses people not because of who we are, but in spite of who we are. “Of the saddest words of tongue and pen, saddest of all, ‘It might have been.’” We may well wonder not at what Samson accomplished, but at what he might have achieved if he had been obedient to God. The fact that God sometimes “hits a straight lick with a crooked stick,” can lead us to stray or to straighten up. Which will it be?
Notice the grace, like a light shining in the darkness. “His hair began to grow again.” The writer of Judges winks at us as he shows us that God is not finished yet. After all of his mistakes and heartaches, God had not forgotten Samson. All of our leaders are fallible. The fact that God uses broken people should not encourage us to celebrate their brokenness or to emulate them. Instead in holy awe, we tremble before the God who uses us. His kindness leads us to repentance. Perhaps a parallel poem helps us more: “God gives. God forgives. God lives.” This is our story if we choose to live it, today.
