Most people know the story of Samson. That angry guy with superhuman strength and the long hair? Yep, that's him! His story is often told as a cautionary tale. You can go to websites and ask "what can we learn from Samson's life?" and they'll tell you that:
Giving in to temptation leads to sin, and sin can have grave consequences
That's a true statement...but I don't think that's the lesson that we should learn from Samson's life. That is a surface-level lesson that you can learn explicitly from any number of scriptures. But when you look deeper, you get deeper. There are two (maybe 3...maybe 1 million) lessons we can learn from Samson:
Lesson #1: Know where your strength comes from
If you don't know the story, read Judges 13 - 16. If you know the story, read Judges 13 - 16. Either way...it'll be new. I had forgotten that Samson was one of those miracle babies (i.e. Isaac, Samuel, Jesus), born to a barren mother, heralded by an angel:
Then the angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and give birth to a son. Now therefore, be careful not to drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing. For behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son, and no razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines.” - Judges 13:3-6
Is there any mention of strength? Is there any mention of the source of this strength being hair?
Even though God never said that his hair was the secret of his strength...Samson thought it was. When asked by Delilah where his strength came from, Samson first thwarted her with lies. First he told her that if they bound him with 7 cords, he'd be weak. When he woke up bound in cords, that should have been a clue that this chick was bad news...but men...sigh. After 2 more lies, Samson finally admitted: "If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me and I will become weak and be like any other man." (Judges 16:17)
This is the problem with Samson: MISPLACED FAITH. He put his faith in his strength, and he attributed his strength to his hair.* How many of us are like that? We put more faith in the gift than in the God who gave it.
*PAUSE: Some may say Samson put his faith in his Nazirite vow. But Samson didn't make a vow. God consecrated and set him apart for a specific task. Plus, if his faith was in the vow, he would have feared wine ("if I drink a glass of wine, I'll lose my strength"). That wasn't the case. Clearly, he's all about the hair. UNPAUSE*
What if Samson had answered: "My strength comes from the Lord. If He should take His Holy Spirit from me, then my strength will leave me and I will become weak and be like any other man. I pray daily against such."
What would Delilah have done then? She would have surely been stuck. She would have thought: "If his strength comes from the Lord who am I, that I could be able to take it from him?"
If your strength comes from the Lord, who can take it from you?!
Samson's true weakness did not come from a bad haircut, but it was a weakness born out of misplaced faith. Faith in the wrong place can harm you. Faith in the wrong place can give you a false sense of security (faith in your hair, your intellect, your job, your relationship, etc.).
Ephesians 6:11-17 urges us to put on the whole armor of God. And that our faith is our shield. But misplaced faith is no shield at all, it's paper-thin and leaves you defenseless.
Samson didn't have a shield. Where's yours?
You might be thinking: ...umm, this is still a cautionary tale. Nope! Check out Part 2.
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