Close Your Eyes and Picture This

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: https://www.encounterchurch.org/messages/]

“If you close your eyes and picture Samson…”, Dirk said.. I did, though I never had before, but I did as I was told. I believe most people who did what they were told Sunday morning came up with a similar image, that of a buff, not-bad-looking, bodybuilding male human hunk of a species.

Photo by EverypixelSISE Stock Image Search Engine on Unsplash

Not Dirk. He said something like, “I think Samson was a soft, skinny, but sneaky son of a gun who apparently spent a little too much time over the Philistine border when he was supposed to be protecting HIS land and HIS people from the Philistines.” Everyone was so surprised by Samson’s feats of strength. So he probably didn’t have the appearance of superhuman strength.

Most of my knowledge of the Samson stories center around his powerful acts, killing men and animals with brute force and bare hands. Sounds like a barbell-lifting border guard to me. I just can't picture small, soft, skinny. The rest of my knowledge of Samson stories center around the battle of the lies between him and the infamous Delilah.

Delilah. We were not asked to visualize her, but my eyes were opened this week to yet another part of the story I missed. The money. She exchanged vital information for so much financial gain. Foolish, wicked, selfish. How could she? Samson loved her.

Dirk says, Delilah wasn’t Samson’s first rodeo, and certainly not his first female Philistine romance. I missed all that prior to Sunday. So I went back and read Samson’s story in full. I now give anyone who is reading this full permission to stop reading right now and go read Judges 13 - 16. Read it all, remembering that those chapters are not written “based on a true story.” They are the true story. Now go read…

Samson was appointed a judge following a line of not-so-good judges who led the people of Israel. He was set apart from the time he was conceived. A Nazarite Vow required he would stay away from all things grape, all things dead, and never ever cut his hair. He was a judge in the time of war between countries. It appears that he did not stay away from the women and wine or out of the warring nation of the Philistines. He was certainly strong in body, though may not have looked like it, but he was so very weak in character. Samson’s life story is easy to point fingers at and say, “How foolish, unhealthy, selfish, self-destructive.” His interactions with Delilah made me think, “Really, Samson? Are you that stupid? Why do you keep going back to her? Does your love make you blind to someone who is clearly just using you?”

I know people who have or are making life choices like Samson, like Delilah. It is so easy to to see the stupid in someone else. True confessions: I am someone who has made life choices that are foolish, wicked, selfish, and self-destructive. In fact I refer to one whole season of my life as “The Stupid Year.” My story did not end there, thankfully. Nor did Samson’s in Gaza, bound in bronze and blindly grinding grain.

Because God knew everything about Samson. He knew what Samson would say before he said it. Samson could not escape from the Spirit of God, even in dark places. God made every part of Samson's skinny, soft, delicate inner parts and knit him together in his once barren mother’s womb. Samson was wonderfully complex because God’s workmanship is so wonderful. Every day of Samson’s life was recorded in God's book.

Insert your name for Samson’s name in this paragraph or in all of Psalm 139 because it's true of you too. Samson belonged to God. You belong to God. Samson knew God well enough to ask for the return of the strong-man gift. Samson knew where that gift came from, that he needed God’s favor even for this final act of revenge on his enemies, knowing he would lose his own life in the process. And that true story is recorded for us to look at, listen to, learn from.

We cannot understand the mystery, the magnificence, the majesty of God Almighty. We can, however, trust that the strength, love, and wisdom of God will always overcome the weakness of men and women. Because God is always good. And he love us so - those he made in his very own image. May we know God in adversity and not forget him in success. May we never forget His forgiveness is limitless and His provision for us is perfect.

Now close your eyes and picture God.

[Laura DeGroot likes to laugh out loud, drink good coffee and eat delicious food...with Jesus her family and friends. She has lived from the West to the East coast but Grand Rapids is home as of two whole years. As The Caffeinated Woman, she speaks to groups of people about how ordinary life is profoundly better knowing an Extraordinary God, and works at Art Of The Table. And she loves books and just published her first one.]

Belonging in the Family of God

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://encounterchurch.org/messages] 

A Facebook post caught my eye recently—it revealed a level of vulnerability I don’t often see on social media. It simply read, “Even though I’m not in high school anymore, it still hurts not to be invited to the party.” Ouch. I think we’ve all been there. Rejected by people we thought were friends. Passed over by those we long to be with. On the outside looking in with no way to enter that inner circle.

It’s even worse when those doing the rejecting are family, the people who are supposed to care about you the most, and want only the best for you. “Not good enough” might be stamped on our forehead. I have someone in my extended family that has, over the years, let me know that she does not really want to spend time with me. I have yet to figure out why. It may be that some of the things I do embarrass her, which to be fair, my children might say the same. But twenty years later, it still hurts. We all carry bits of that kind of baggage if we are honest about it.

The woman at the well in John 4 in the Bible carried that baggage as well. Rejected by multiple husbands, the women of the town, and society in general, she comes to the well alone. Jesus meets her in her pain and loneliness—he sees her in a way her community does not. I love that Jesus offers himself to her as living water—water that moves and cleanses. Years ago, when debating the merits of showers versus tub baths, my son declared, “Who wants a tub bath? It’s like sitting in your own filth.” Being a confirmed tub-bather, I continued the debate, but I understood his point. Moving water washes dirt away and with its continuing movement keeps washing us clean.

One of my favorite songs contains the lyrics, “You make me new, you are making me new.” God’s living water, Jesus, washes us clean, and continues to work each day to move us closer to being people after God’s own heart. I keep coming back to this thought: again and again God comes back for his people. He comes to gather in the rejected, the broken hearted, the depressed, the weird ones, the estranged, the outsiders. The ones who feel entitled, or swear too much, those who whine, the pushy ones, the resentful. In other words, all of us.

This is so not me, and probably, if you are truthful, not you either. We want to believe God loves and hates all the same people we do. But back again and again God’s grace taps us on the shoulder and says, “I want YOU” like a cosmic Uncle Sam, not pulling us into an army, but back into his family, his chosen ones, his dearly loved kiddos. He wants that so much that he became flesh and blood and entered into our humanity. He washes us clean and we become sons and daughters in the family of God.

[Sandy Navis is happily retired and spends her days doing pretty much whatever she wants to do. She is a firm believer in the power of laughter, singing while doing the dishes, crazy dancing while cleaning house, and eating chocolate every day. Sandy has three grandkids, who she loves to talk about even more than breadmaking.]