By Pastor Donald Parker
Have you ever asked yourself, “How did I get myself in such a mess?” The Bible, in the book of Judges gives an account of Samson. He made a real mess of his life. Samson made three common mistakes that brought him nothing but pain, problems, sorrow and regret. His life is an example of what not to do.
One mistake Samson made was failure to learn from his mistakes. Samson was a man of great physical strength but a man morally weak. He made the same mistakes over and over again and never learned from them. Samson had a bad habit of playing around with temptation; he couldn’t say no to a beautiful woman. Samson played the lying game with Delilah that lead her to say to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven’t told me the secret of your great strength” (Judges 16:15). Delilah was accusing Samson of deceiving her, when all along she was the one deceiving and lying. Samson allowed himself to be trapped by her deception. “With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it. So he told her everything” (vs. 16-17a). Samson weakness plagued him all of his life and finally he was caught and imprisoned because he wouldn’t say no to his girlfriend Delilah.
Don’t you find it is interesting that the strongest man in the Bible was weak when it came to a beautiful woman? Samson played with temptation. Often we do the same. We don’t wake up in the morning with a plan of getting ourselves in a mess; it’s a gradual thing, a step by step process of bad choices that build up over time. Never learning from our past mistakes can cost us our life and in Samson’s case, it did.
The second mistake Samson made is that he used poor judgment when choosing his friends. God chose Samson for a special task but Samson got himself in a mess by the people he associated with. God has a plan and purpose for each one of us but we often get ourselves into trouble and find ourselves in a real mess because of the people we choose to hang out with. The Bible warns us about this. Proverbs 13:20 says, “Walk with the wise and become wise; associate with fools and get into trouble.” When we choose to constantly expose ourselves to people of poor character and bad attitudes, their attitudes and actions will eventually take its toll on our lives and we find ourselves asking, “How did I get myself in such a mess?” Your friends should be people who build you up and help you be a better person.
The third mistake Samson made is that he didn’t take God seriously. There’s no mention of Samson ever praying about anything. There is no mention of him praying to God except in the final moments of his life, when he brought the temple down. He was always doing his own thing; living for himself, doing what he wanted to do, when he wanted to do it, with whoever he wanted to do it with. God had a great plan for Samson and God has a plan and purpose for you. We can save ourselves a lot of pain, problems, sorrow and regrets if we just stop and ask God for direction in our life and the wisdom to make the right decisions.
In the end, Samson turned to God but what a tragedy that he wasted his life. Some of us refuse to turn to God until we’ve gotten ourselves in a real mess. Why not take preventative measures? Why not seek God first, before you get yourself into a mess? Choose to take God seriously. Spend time reading and applying God’s word to your life. Spend time in prayer seeking God’s plan for your life. Choose your friends wisely by being a part of a community of believers. If you don’t have a church family I would like to invite you to be part of our family at First Baptist Church.
