Samson’s Riddle

Have you ever thought about the fact that we only know and experience the world because we have senses? Senses are a means through which we gain understanding about the world around us. According to Jesus in Matthew 13:16—“Blessed are your eyes because they do see, and your ears because they do hear”—they are also how we discover and receive His truth. But sometimes we allow our senses to run after other things, instead of using them to pursue God.

As we read a passage like Judges 14, we might wonder how a man of God like Samson could lose so much of his wisdom and understanding. Samson was quite a force. Like Israel, he had been set apart, specially blessed by God to bless others. His call was to deliver Israel from the Philistines (Judges 13:5). His superpower was his incredible, physical strength. But his use of it demonstrated his lack of spiritual strength. He frequently forgot his calling, or dismissed it, listening instead to his wants. He ate honey he was not supposed to eat as a Nazirite (vv.8–9) and married and left a woman he should have avoided in the first place (vv.8,20). Like Israel, he lived as the rest of the world, chasing after other loves and forgetting God and His higher calling. If we’re honest, we’re a lot like Samson; we tend to see and hear our own desires.

Samson could have shown Israel how to live as one called by God. He could have demonstrated both great physical and spiritual strength. Instead, he spent his time pursuing his own path and harming those who got in his way. God used Samson’s actions for His own purposes: to protect Israel and demonstrate His power. Still, Samson’s desires led to his demise; the same happens for Israel. If only he and they would have remembered the beauty of the Lord and the powerful calling He had given them. If only we could remember this too.

Samson’s strength saved Israel temporarily, but God had to send one who could save permanently. One with “a Spirit of wisdom and understanding…counsel and strength…and of the fear of the LORD” (Isaiah 11:2). In the greatest rescue in history, Jesus endured the cross, forever solidifying our salvation. Our call today is to respond to what we have seen and heard. We all have Samson-like moments in our days. But let’s be wise and willing to turn back to Jesus, trusting His promise to heal us and help us see and hear Him (Matthew 13:15–16).