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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Who is your Delilah?

After feeling prompted to read the story of Samson from the Bible recently, "Lord, you mean the guy with really long hair?" I was surprised how much I received from the short story after reading it a couple of times.


The story of Samson and Delilah

Samson dates a girl named Delilah whose name means feeble. Anytime a name is mentioned in the Bible, its meaning relates to the person's character. In this instance, Delilah means feeble which means someone who is morally weak. We could probably stop here, "Don't date or associate with anyone who is morally weak" but we would miss a great story.

So, everyone knows that Samson is the strongest man around, probably had to do with the fact that he killed a thousand men with a donkey's jawbone earlier in the story. So, a group of men bribe Delilah with lots of cash to find out where Samson's strength comes from so she keeps pestering and pestering Samson to tell her his secret; and so the term "Gold Digger" is created for the first time. The first time, Samson tells Delilah that if he is tied up with fresh bowstrings he will lost his strength. So, Delilah waits for Samson to fall asleep, ties him up, allows the Philistines, Samson's enemies, into her house, wakes Samson up and discovers that Samson is lying to her, after Samson easily breaks the bowstrings. This goes on two more times. What is Samson thinking? He wakes up on three separate occasions to realize that his girlfriend wants him dragged off to jail. I think Samson would be a good candidate for The Bachelor.

Finally, in Judges 15 - 16 Then she (Delilah) said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and have not told me where your great strength lies." She tormented him with her nagging day after day until he was sick to death of it.

Samson finally tells her the truth, he gets his strength from his hair which has never been cut, so Delilah cuts his hair when he falls asleep, he loses his strength, and he is dragged away by his enemies to be tortured and imprisoned; what a caring and thoughtful girlfriend. Samson is eventually imprisoned, his eyes gouged out, and is made fun of of in front of his enemies.

So, "Who or what is your Delilah?" What, or who, in your life, is…

• Taking away your strength little by little?

• Holding you back from your destiny and life's vision?

• What are you allowing in your life that you are sick to death of that you are refusing to let go of?

• What are you putting up with today that one or two years ago you would have dismissed in your life?

What are the consequences of putting up with a Delilah in your life…

• The eventual loss of your vision and life's calling (Samson was called from birth to a particular task but Delilah derailed his life's vision and he paid for it with his eyesight and his life).

• You will eventually be worn down to the point of putting up with things you would normally not put up with (Samson allowed Delilah to try to tie him up three times before he told her his secret).

o Toxic friendships and relationships will do that to you.

What to do, what to do…Get rid of those things in your life, those habits, or those toxic relationships that are wearing you down little by little. You know you need to and your life will be so much better once you do!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well Bill, your caption captured my imagination. I read your post thinking you would be talking about immorality but I was pleasantly surprised that you weaved into the story so many aspects of our journey with Jesus. I liked it. Thanks.

For me, what I'm taking back to Jesus is your fist question - what is taking my strength little by little? It'sa good question to be asking because it can happen so subtly. Thanks again Bill.