"What are you studying, Dad?" My six year old daughter asked me.
"I'm going to teach Sunday School about Samson," I told her. "Do you know who he was?"
"Yes," Victoria said. "He had really long hair -- as long as a girl's -- and he knocked a temple down."
"You're right," I agreed. "He had long hair and he knocked a temple down." What I didn't say was, "You know, Samson had a lot of issues that his strength couldn't cover up."
As I pondered on the story of Samson, I became convinced that his life was emblematic of greater issues that men (and probably some women) face.
The story of Samson is the story of a narcissist. It is the story of a man who used his strength to hide his weakness. It is a story of unrealized potential. Most of all, it is a story about God using someone despite their flaws.
The Story
Samson was a special child from the beginning. The book of Judges tells us that his his parents weren't able to have children. At some point, his mother was visited by an angel who announced his birth, along with instructions that he was never to drink wine or cut his hair.
Samson lived in a time when the people of Israel were oppressed by a neighboring people, the Philistines. As he got older, he began to pick fights with them and killed many of them.
Eventually, after 20 years, Samson fell in love with a Philistine name Delilah. She convinced him to reveal the source of his strength. Once he told her that his strength came from his long hair, she cut his hair (the Philistines had promised her a lot of money for this information).
A weak Samson was captured. The Philistines put his eyes out and made him grind grain in a prison.
At the end of his life he was brought to a temple to be ridiculed by the Philistines. As he stood by the temple's supporting pillars, he cried out to God for one last burst of strength. He pushed the pillars over, destroying the temple and killing himself and many Philistines in the process.
That's a thumb nail sketch of his life as found in the book of Judges chapters 13-16. It is a story of stupendous strength and amazing weakness.
Samson was Special
Samson's parents had wanted a child for a long time and had been unable to have one. When an angel showed up to announce that they were going to have a child, they were beyond thrilled.
Samson grew up knowing that he was special. Unfortunately, this knowledge led him down the path of narcissism.
Every one of us is special. There is no doubt this is true. God had a purpose in mind for each when He created us. Focusing too much on our "specialness" is pretty dangerous.
When we believe that the world revolves around us, it leads us to behave arrogantly. It also causes us to be have in ways that destroy or limit the depth of our relationships with others.
The only thing worse than loving a narcissist is being a narcissist and not understanding why no one in your world loves you enough.
Samson was a Loner
Samson achieved amazing feats of strength. He killed a thousand Philistines with the jaw bone of a donkey, he killed a lion with his bare hands, and he carried the gates of Gath 36 miles to a hill near Hebron.
As amazing as these episodes in his life were, it is easy to question what he could have been if he had chosen to work with others. Other men in Judges, like Gideon, were not successful because of their great strength, but because they worked with others and had God's blessing on their lives.
We live in an individualistic society. It is a society that values the uniqueness of each person and encourages men and women to find their own path. While there may be some value to this, there is much greater benefit to individuals to find and work in community. Each one of us needs a community that values our unique aspects, but also strengthens our weakness.
Humans need community. We need at least a couple of people who will be willing to share truth with us that we don't want to hear. We need people willing to pray for us when we are not strong. We need others to stand beside us when the battle is too much.
If life is about achieving our potential, we will never reach that when we live in isolation.
Samson Lost the Important Battles
Even in the midst of the glory of his strength, Samson was losing the important battles. Samson never achieved victories over his own lusts and desires.
It seems as though Samson's life was spent chasing fulfillment of his own desire for pleasure. Even as he succeeded in this pursuit, he was an abject failure. His whole motivation was a mixture of a desire for sexual gratification and anger at those who stood in his way.
While God was able to use this flawed man to inflict great losses on the Philistines, there is no doubt that Samson's greatest enemy was not conquered for the majority of his life. That enemy was Samson.
In the same way, there have been people who spoke before great crowds and seemed to be doing great works for God -- at least until revelations came out that showed them to have serious moral failings in their lives.
No man can win the war until he gains the victory over himself.
Samson Used His Strength to Avoid Consequences
Reading the brief narrative of Samson's life we find Samson visiting a prostitute in Gath and then escaping with the gate of the city on his shoulders.
Even in his encounters with Delilah, Samson skated on the edge of disaster. Three times he escaped from the Philistines because of his strength.
This was the worst thing that could have happened. The only thing that Samson learned from these episodes was that he was strong enough for every situation.
The human tendency is to use whatever is in our power to shield ourselves from the consequences of our behavior. No one wants to suffer and so people use their strength, deception, or influence over others to live consequence-free lives. When we can do wrong with impunity, it only leads to much worse things.
Eventually everyone reaches the point where the rewards of their behavior cannot be held off any longer and the results are brutal.
It is better to feel pain from bad behavior than to continue on a highway bound for disaster.
Samson Never Understood the Source of His Strength
As a child I always understood Samson's strength as coming directly from his long hair. It is understandable that I thought this. Samson never had his hair cut and was always victorious. Delilah cut his hair and he was weak. Judges tells us that while Samson was in prison his hair grew and he became strong one last time.
Certainly, this is what Samson believed for most of his life. He could do whatever he wanted, as long as he didn't have his hair cut, he would be victorious.
The author of Judges tells us something more. Samson's power came from God's spirit. It says about him that when he went out that last time to defeat, "He wist not that the Lord was departed from him."
Samson's strength came from God's Spirit's presence in his life. Because he did nothing to maintain that relationship, he wasn't even aware when its tenuous connection was finally severed. When Samson's strength returned, it was not because his hair had grown, but because he chose to cry out to God for the strength that he didn't have on his own.
Often we are not aware of the source of our strength. While we give lip service to God's blessing on our lives there is a tendency to believe that it is our own hard work and dedication that has helped us to achieve our success.
Maybe it isn't surprising how many of us struggle with weakness and defeat when we don't work to maintain the source of our strength.
True strength only comes through God's blessing, those who forget that will suffer defeat in the important areas of their lives.
Conclusion
There are a lot of men that are quick to identify a "Jezebel spirit" in women. Many of these men are afflicted with "Samson Syndrome."
These men are focused on their own desires. They are loners and lonely -- even as they are surrounded by communities that would be easy for them to access. They are doing nothing to maintain a relationship with God. They are blind as to the reasons that they struggle with weakness, emptiness, and defeat.
There is no pill that cures narcissism. In fact, it is hard for people who are dealing with this to do anything about it. More than that, people on the path of narcissism do not listen to outside input. Narcissists don't believe they are the one with the problem. It is everyone else who has issues.
The saddest thing about Samson was that his story is one of wasted potential. He had such strength and could have been a real leader if he hadn't constantly fallen to his desire to please himself. God used Samson in spite of Samson.
I wonder how many men through history have never achieved simply because they were not willing to do what it took to gain mastery over their own desires. They had some superficial appearance of success, but their potential was wasted because they did not understand either what was really important (not themselves) or where true strength comes from (God).
The path for success is simple and yet it is hard to follow for people who believe themselves to be strong and self-sufficient. This route begins with honesty and vulnerability and its journey lies through the Land of Service. It is this land that produces all great men and women. It is this path that creates leaders who are worth following.
They are great because they serve.
