Look at Samson's life

The other day I was reading about Samson. It is a story that I have read many times. I have always thought of Samson as a guy who messed up. But when I read it the other day I came to know about certain things which made me look at the whole thing in a different view.

1. Nazarite does not mean just long hair

Samson was raised as a Nazarite. The Nazarite vow if you read Deuteronomy is time bound and it involves being separated for God. There are 3 important things a Nazarite needs to do: 1. Never use a razor 2. Never go near a dead body 3. Never drink wine. If you look at Samson's story he broke rules 2 and 3 long before he broke rule 1. But it is touted as the main reason for his strength and we often equate his hair being cut to him losing his Strength. We in our day to day life make a lot of small sins and disobey God's commandments. Inspite of this God continues to be with us. When God decides to leave that is when we would realize that all our Glory is through him. In the case of Samson, he never took his Nazarite vow seriously, I beleive that at some point he beleived that his power is not because of God. It is at this point God decides to teach him a lesson and leaves him.

It is now not fashionable to talk about God's wrath or about the need to Fear God. I was talking to one of my friends and he made the statement that most Christians don't fear God. We spend a lot of time talking about God's love, his blessing, etc. we do not spend equal time talking about his punishment. This causes us to compromise on our commitments (me inclusive). When I look at Samson's story it felt like the same way. He just goes with the flow always thinking that God will understand and his relationship with God will not change no matter what he does. After all God was with him when he violated the other rules. We need to watch out our inclination to take God for granted.

2. Phillistines were more sophisticated and cultured than the Israelites.

When I did some reading about the Phillistines outside the Bible it is obvious that they had more sophisticated weaponry than the Israelites. It seems that they had the ability to make iron chariots whereas the Israelites did not know how to use iron. They had a thriving economy as they controlled the seas and knew how to sail. Israelites were immigrants in the land of Phillistines. Samson's lifetime is one of the timeframes where there is no mention that Phillistines persecuted Israelites. The issue at hand does not seem one of persecution but more of losing their identity. Samson struggled with preserving his identity. He sought to be with the Phillistines all the time. As we live among non-beleivers we will often be among people who would seem culturally more sophisticated and would look down upon us for our religious beliefs. We will have to watch our way and avoid the pitfalls that caused Samson to Fall.

3. Samson the Hero

Inspite of all his failings. Samson judged Israel for 20 years. He is mentioned along with Gideon and others by Paul in the New Testament. It just shows that inspite of our weaknesses God is compassionate and continues to use us for his Glory. So lets not get bogged down by our weaknesses and we pray to God to help us bring Glory to His name. God can use us inspite of our weaknesses. As paul says the only way humans are capable of living a sinless life is for us to die and let Jesus's spirit live in us. For Samson as he was in the auditorium, his life had ended he let God's spirit live in his body and do his will. Our whole life ends up being a journey in letting go of every aspect of our life. Samson found it in his final days. That is the reason he is mentioned as one of the heroes.

Money Money Money

In the book the world is flat Thomas Friedman states that the flattening process started with the fall of the Berlin wall. It started when communism/socialism as a concept failed. All over the world every one has accepted that capitalism is the only way for countries/nations/communities to function. One of the more common pitfalls of a capitalistic society is materialism. Money and material things take control of your life. We as christians need to develop the right attitude towards money otherwise we will be forever chasing the wind. Here are some perspectives that you need to have to develop the right attitude towards money.

God is the provider of everything.

We need to convince ourselves that the money that we own and what we will own in the future is provided to us by God. God is the ultimate provider of all things we own. This is the big picture view that we often forget when we are dealing with money.

The story of Job is a good example of what God can do and also the attitude you need to have towards money. Any time you can loose all your money if God wills (Its not a bad thing ). It could be a natural calamity, just plain inflation or an investment gone wrong. The right attitude to have is reflected in Job 1:21. He said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, And naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD."

I read an article in Forbes magazine where they did a study on tithing. It was found that within the same economic strata people who tithed were less stressed out about their money, more capable of taking risks for good rewards, and generally content about their financial standing. The article concludes that they all beleived that God is the provider. Having this kind of an attitude also reduces our dependence on money and what money can provide to solve our problems.

Attitude of Contentment: Blessing is not equal to material blessing

In our lives we often forget to remind ourselves about the wonderful non-material things that God provides us. He would have provided us with an excellent church community, great friends, very good teacher for the kids, Great health for the family, a satisfying job, a meaningful ministry, etc. All of the above things are the ones that money is suppose to enable us to have. God might have provided us with all that for free but we might still be discontent because your bank balance is not as big as the other person.

In the movie bedazzled the hero is granted multiple wishes which could be granted except ask for happiness. So he goes about asking for different things that he feels might bring him happiness but all of them end up with something missing. This makes him not realize happiness through out the movie.

When I first heard about how to pray to God, we were told that we should praise him first. I got the feeling that why should God need to be praised all the time. Is God such a big narcissist ? Now I realize that the main reason is to enable us to count our blessings and to appreciate the things God has done for us.

When we read the story of israelites in the desert with Moses, most people's reaction is what an ungrateful people. We also do the same thing.

God owns it all and we are all just stewards.

If God provides all we have and we do not play a part in it. Then what makes us so special for God to shower us with wealth. Like we saw before in the article about career, each one of us is uniquely created for a purpose. So it is this purpose for which God is providing us with wealth and money. We need to remember that for everything that is provided to us we need to provide an account to God.

What does that mean. The wealth needs to be used in glorifying God. So can we buy luxury cars. Yes you can provided in your heart you realize that God in his grace blessed you with it and you are thankful to God for that. Now it is easy to say this with your lips. God looks at your heart. If you can feel that in your heart then I think it is okay. God approves of this kind of behavior with the woman who puts expensive perfume to glorify God.