Three Strikes
Three Strikes
Judges 16:15-17a
And she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and you have not told me where your great strength lies.” And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him, his soul was vexed to death. And he told her all his heart, …
“Delilah, how can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You’ve handed me over to torturers these three times—so let’s cut the melodrama, shall we!” That’s how Samson should’ve responded in verse 16, isn’t it? Yet, I’m starting to think that this relationship has been a lop-sided affair from the beginning. I bet Delilah’s been dragging Samson around by his heartstrings from day to day, giving him feint little hopes of affection, but always keeping him at an arm’s length. And he’s so helplessly in love, so adamant to win her affection, that he keeps forgiving her every time he wakes up in new bonds her hands have tied. He keeps excusing her role in the endeavor, assuming she’s just being used against her will, that it’s really those Philistine thugs at fault, and he’ll fight for her love or die trying. See, Delilah could’ve argued, “Samson, look at me—I love you with all my heart! But my heart is breaking now that I can’t trust you!”, or “Samson, you have all of me—I’m yours completely—so why do you mock me by giving me only part of yourself?” But there’s no affection like that at all here. Just cold breath from a cold heart in love with cold cash.
The saddest part to me is that Samson’s been here before, decades early, when his first wife wept over him day after day, begging him for the secret to his riddle, which ended in a terrible calamity, but he hasn’t learned a thing from that trauma. Alarm bells are blaring in his mind throughout this week as Delilah prods him day after day, joined by a voice from his heavenly Father saying, “Come back home, son—I love you! It’s not too late,” and this might be his last chance to get up from the couch, walk out the door, and snap off the bonds before it’s too late.
Friend, give your heart fully to the LORD today, and don’t waste another beat on that which means to destroy it.