A Life Set Apart For God Samson

A man named Manoah had a wife who could not have children.  One day an angel of God appeared to his wife and said, “You will have a son who will be set apart for God from his birth. You are not to cut his hair nor should he eat anything unclean as this is a special child.”

She excitedly ran to her husband and said, “An angel of God appeared to me and said that I would have a son”. It happened as the angle had prophesied, Samson was born.

This is quite amazing and quite extraordinary as it shows that God can have a plan for a person’s life even before they are born. It also shows God can know everything before it happens. His knowledge is beyond our understanding. It shows we cannot understand God with our minds. God can only be understood with a spiritual mind.  

God knew before Samson was born that he would “mess up” but that did not change his mind to set him apart for himself. This is great news for us all. God’s calling does not depend on our goodness but on his goodness and mercy.

God had gifted Samson with amazing physical strength. He had been sent to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines.  He used his physical strength to fight the philistines.  Such was his physical strength that with his bare hands he could kill a lion.  The philistines lived in fear of Samson.

Samson had been set apart for God but he did not always walk in God’s ways. He was forbidden to have relationships with Philistine women but he chose to do so. His first relationship with the philistine woman went very wrong. His second relationship with Delilah went disastrously wrong.

He told her the secret of his physical strength, which was if his hair were cut he would be as weak as any other man. As soon as she found out the secret. She got him to sleep on her lap and cut his hair off and then called the Philistines who arrested him, took his eyes out and put him in a dungeon.  Samson was now blind and in a dungeon where there appeared to be no hope.

 He cried out to God from the dark dungeon and God met with him there. Samson’s hair begun to grow again and he began to regain his physical strength.

The good news for you and me is that what God has set apart for himself can never be plucked out of his hands. Samson’s life may have looked a failure when he was in the dungeon but from God’s point of view it was not a failure.  

When Samson himself died, thousands of philistines died with him. God had accomplished his mission through Samson.

The dungeons in our own lives can be those dark places where there seems to be little or no hope. It can be anything from bereavement, divorce, sickness, guilt, unemployment or depression but there is hope we can also cry out to God as Samson did from the dungeon. (The story of Samson is found in the Bible in the Old Testament.)

Prayer 

Dear God,

I call out to you.

Please set me apart for you

And never let me go.

Please support and comfort me in my need.

Please fulfil your plan for my life.

I ask this in Jesus’ name.

Amen

By harbajan (servant of Jesus) 15/07/13