Then she said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when you won't confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven't told me the secret of your great strength." With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death. – Judges 16:15-16
Sampson…
Ok, here’s the thing. I kinda want to feel bad for you. But man, she showed you three times already what she’s all about. And it’s clear that she isn’t all about you.
She was shady dude...
Well at least she wasn’t as cheap as Judas. He sold out for only thirty pieces of silver. Delilah got way more out of the deal; but still, this never should have happened. Were there no attractive women from Israel?
I guess that just wasn’t your thing.
But all of that doesn’t really matter does it? In the end you still redeemed Israel. You brought down the Philistine temple with your bare hands! That was quite the gangsta move. It makes me think though… was it all worth it? Was getting down with the enemy worth the price of your eyes?
It doesn’t seem like it.
I don’t know man. I’m just really bothered by the whole thing. I guess what I’m stuck on is this whole purpose versus choice thing. You were born with the purpose of delivering Israel from Palestine and you did it. You did it even though you were destroyed by the weakness your own choices.
I’ve done that too. I have waited until rock bottom to come crying to God too so I really can’t judge. Thankfully He has come to the rescue. But I’m gonna learn from you. No more of that mess. It’s not the business.
Plus, I don’t have that same flare for theatrics that you have.
A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was sterile and remained childless.The angel of the LORD appeared to her and said, "You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son.Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean,because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines." – Judges 13: 2-5
We have seen this story in many forms already in our journey through the Bible. Jesus was born with a purpose. John the Baptist was born with a purpose. And so too was Sampson.
But what does that mean for you and me?
Are we all born with some particular God given purpose? What if we don’t want to fulfill this purpose? Then what? Do we have to walk that path anyway? Or maybe the tapestry of our choices is weaved in such away that no matter what we choose we will end up being the art that God created us to be.
Or perhaps this purpose thing is all nonsense. Maybe this is all hindsight. Maybe the stories are written so clearly because they were written after the deeds were done. People do what they do and then try to make sense of it later right?
This is a timeless question… choice versus destiny. Which one is true?
And you know what I figured out… it doesn’t really matter. I do believe that truth is an objective reality; so maybe one side of the debate is right and the other wrong. Or perhaps neither side is capable of grasping the infinitely large picture of existence.
But in the end we still have to wake up everyday. We still have to live our lives. So rather than being stuck on this question of who is pulling the strings, I choose to do all that I can with the power that I have to be the best that I can be.
When it’s all said and done I am confident that this will give me the best of both worlds. I will have lived my life the best way I saw fit; and it will have been a life that hopefully put a smile on God’s face.
The men of Ephraim called out their forces, crossed over to Zaphon and said to Jephthah, "Why did you go to fight the Ammonites without calling us to go with you? We're going to burn down your house over your head."
Jephthah answered, "I and my people were engaged in a great struggle with the Ammonites, and although I called, you didn't save me out of their hands.When I saw that you wouldn't help, I took my life in my hands and crossed over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave me the victory over them. Now why have you come up today to fight me?" Judges 12: 1-3
Wait just one minute! Jephthah has already gone to battle and saved the day and her comes the tribe of Ephraim “Johnny come lately” on the scene. Not only that, but they’re also ready to do battle?
Yeah right sonny.
Of course Jephthah proceeded to lay the smack down on them for a cool minute but it really didn’t have to be that way… After all they are all family.
That’s no bueno.
But sometimes the folks who seem like they are the closest to us are the ones planning on taking us down when we seem weak. Jephthah’s response was perfect though. He had a job to do, he asked for help, and when it wasn’t given he took matters into his own hands.
We cannot just sit around waiting for others to get in the game with us. Sure life is a team sport. But, if you are ready to move, move with the troops you have.
Because sometimes no matter how long you wait, reinforcements never come. Then you are left in a worse position. Time has past, opportunities have been lost, and perhaps dreams have dried up.
So seize your purpose while it is still ripe. If not, the fruit of your labor might spoil before you can get your hands on it.
The Israelites said to Gideon, "Rule over us—you, your son and your grandson—because you have saved us out of the hand of Midian."
But Gideon told them, "I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The LORD will rule over you." Judges 8: 22-23
This is a really interesting passage to me. It relates to today’s reading because after Gideon died, one of his sons decided that he should rule over Israel. What happened as a result was a mixture of murder, mayhem, chaos, and disaster.
What I am learning as I read Judges is that the judges made it a point to not rule over Israel. Rather they were people of purpose. Each judge rose out of a desperate need. Gideon for example broke Israel out of the bondage of the Midianites. He didn’t even want to do the job but in the end he fulfilled his purpose.
So you might be wondering… who cares and what does this have to do with me? Well the thing that I take from this is that we each have a responsibility to ourselves, to God and to our purpose. There is power in this notion. It means that we each can do something in our own way to change the world around us.
We are each the authors of our own destiny.
When we give too much power to another person bad things tend to happen. At a very basic level most of us think first in terms of our own self interest. So when you give up your power to another person, they aren’t naturally inclined to do what is best for you. This is when relationships get unhealthy.
I’m sure this is pretty familiar. Have you seen a friend or a loved one in a relationship like this? Perhaps you have experienced this yourself. It is one of those relationships where one person has surrendered control of their life to another person. Generally when this happens the person with power takes advantage of the person who had given up their power.
Even if the abuse of power isn’t tangibly visible, at the very least the person who has given up control of their life is literally lost. We all have a path to follow. But what happens when you start following someone else’s path? It’s pretty safe to say that following someone else isn’t the path to your purpose.
So when it comes to the decisions that you have to make, the paths you take and the moves you make… don’t let another man or woman sit in the driver’s seat.
It may seem like they know where they are going, but it’s probably not where you should be headed.
The LORD said to Gideon, "You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her. Judges 7:2
Hey Gideon,
You are one of my favorite people in the Bible. Why you ask? Well I’ll tell you. It’s because I have on many occasions been just like you.
I’ve heard many a pastor talk about you as if you are a coward. After all you were threshing wheat in a wine cellar. But I feel you man. The Midianites had plundered everything from the land. You were just trying to make sure you’d have some food to eat.
When the angel of God came to you and said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior” that must have been crazy. I too probably would have looked over my shoulder to see who he was talking to.
And when you were so unsure of yourself that you politely asked the angel of God to show you not one sign but TWO miraculous signs… whew… I was feeling that too. I’ve asked God to do the same for me way more than two times. And God has patiently shown me the signs.
I think that God always shows us the signs anyways. It’s just that sometimes it is hard for us to see them. Maybe we don’t see them because we aren’t looking for them. Often times I think we don’t see them because we are running from them.
And you kinda did that too for a second. But that doesn’t matter. In the end, you turned and faced it and became the mighty warrior that the angel said you were.
And that’s what really matters anyway right? It’s all about how we end up; not so much about how we got there. Yes the journey does teach us and help us become who we are. We may make a thousand bad decisions, go in a hundred wrong directions, or run away from our purpose like it were a plague. But when we say “yes” all of that goes out the window.
When we say yes, God says yes back.
And then all of the sudden we don’t need tens of thousands of troops to win our wars. We can go to battle with the few people that God has put at our sides and defeat any foes in our path.
Barak said to her, "If you go with me, I will go; but if you don't go with me, I won't go."
"Very well," Deborah said, "I will go with you. But because of the way you are going about this, the honor will not be yours, for the LORD will hand Sisera over to a woman." So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh, where he summoned Zebulun and Naphtali. Ten thousand men followed him, and Deborah also went with him. – Judges 4: 8-10
So now we are in the period of Israel’s history where the judges are running things. Joshua has died and when the people fall away from God, a judge rises up to help lead the people back to the right path. In this case it was a prophetess named Deborah.
She tells Barak to get some troops together and go out and wage war for Israel’s freedom. But there’s one problem with this strategy.
He’s scared.
He won’t go unless she comes. So, she obliges.
She leads the Israeli forces in battle and they slaughter the enemy. The last thing left to do is capture and kill the general of the other army, Sisera.
So Barak is hunting him down; but, who actually gets him? A woman named Jael.
Sisera sought refuge in her house because her husband was friendly with his king. Little did he know how gangsta she was…
"Stand in the doorway of the tent," he told her. "If someone comes by and asks you, 'Is anyone here?' say 'No.' "
But Jael, Heber's wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died. – Judges 4: 20-21
Goodnight Sisera.
How ruggedly down for the team was she? Hey, it was rough times in Israel. Many of the Israelites had turned away from God and the neighboring countries have invaded the Promised Land. And in a moment of desperation who comes through?
The women.
There’s that saying that behind every great man is a great woman. That may be true, but that does not mean that the woman must be behind.
We need strong female leadership now just like Israel did back then.
Plus, is there anything sexier than a strong woman of purpose?
After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession of the land, each to his own inheritance. The people served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the LORD had done for Israel…
After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel.Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. - Judges 2: 6-7, 10-12
This made me think of this great episode of Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Ashley Banks (the youngest daughter) decided that she wanted to go to public school. Of course Uncle Phil was against it. Why should she go to public school? He was rich. He could afford to put her in the best schools money could offer.
Plus he grew up in public schools and had to struggle through them to become the man that he grew up to be. The private school, in his opinion, would better prepare her for any kind of future she may want to have.
So what did Ashley do? She switched schools without her parents knowing (kinda far fetched but bear with me here).
Of course her parents found out and there was this big fight about it. Then Uncle Phil’s wife, Vivian, brought up a great point. They had worked so hard to provide their children with everything they couldn’t have, that they didn’t stop to think about how wonderful some of the things that they had actually were.
Many of us have come from troubled backgrounds. Perhaps you grew up poor, and never had the chance to receive a proper education. Maybe you were the first generation to immigrate to the place that you live. You had to learn a new language and struggle to adapt to a new reality. However, through the grace of God and hard work you still persevered and blazed your own trail in the world.
It seems logical to do all that you can to prevent your children from going through what you went through.
That may not be the case. We have to remember that we have a responsibility to the next generation. We have to teach them the best we can. We have to expose them to the best opportunities that we can afford. Some of these best opportunities don’t come from the fruits of our blessings, but rather, from the richness of faith, culture, and heritage that combined to make us who we are.
Some of the legacies that we seem to run from are the source of our blessings. Uncle Phil had to be reminded of all of the good that he experienced as a product of the public school systems before he could realize that he might be robbing Ashley of one of the most powerful treasures of his childhood.
So let’s teach the children about our various cultures. Let’s encourage them to speak our native languages. Let’s fill them in on the successes and mistakes that we, our families, and our communities have made.
This way they will be in the best possible position to avoid what happened to Israel. Hopefully they will make better choices and create better realities in the future for everyone.
