Samson’s Obituary

4.2.2011

Judges 16:31 31 Then his brothers and his father’s whole family went down to get him. They brought him back and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had led Israel twenty years. NIV

When I read this verse today, I asked myself, Paul, so what exactly did Samson do? He led Israel for twenty years, he killed numerous Philistines; he was married once, slept with prostitutes, and had himself a girlfriend – one Delilah. He led Israel for twenty years and the sum total of his life seems to me to be: an odious irritant to Philistia.

In Judges 13 it says of Samson, “No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”(v. 5) So, in twenty years of leading his nation, Samson accomplished this: he began the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines. And what Samson began, continued through Saul, and finally was accomplished in David.

This morning’s reading made me think about my life and how my obituary might read. Samson’s was this: He began the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines and he led Israel twenty years.

Last night I heard a guy say, “none of us has peaked yet – we’re all still learning.” And that’s true. I want to learn up until the day I die. And I want to serve the Lord with what might be considered ever-increasing effectiveness. I think about my family, I think about my job and I think about my ministry and something in me pushes me to have an obit that reads a little more than, “He lived his life and led his family.”

Our lives mostly are what we make of them; and always what we make of our circumstances. Apparently Samson knew part of his mission; his life was a wreck and he wrecked just about everything he touched from his parents to Dagon’s temple in Philistia; but he was one odious irritant to God's enemies. What about you – any spark of divine fire in you to become more than just an odious irritant to … ? Are we living our lives so that others give God glory: If He can do that with him, then there’s hope for me! I hope so – for me and for you.