“Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.”
(Psalm 119:37 ESV)
Oh be careful, little eyes, what you see
Oh be careful, little eyes, what you see
For the Father up above is looking down in love,
Oh be careful, little eyes, what you see
This was one song I learned in vacation Bible school as a child. It’s verses go on with, “O be careful little ears what you hear…” and “O be careful little tongue what you say…,” but today I’m thinking about what our eyes see. I have been studying Samson’s story and keep coming back to two things: the power of the Spirit of the Lord within him (which I’ll discuss in a future post) and how his eyes influenced his life.
As you probably remember, Samson was dedicated as a Nazarite to the Lord before he was born and his parents sought God’s direction for how to raise their child correctly. As a Nazarite he was not to eat or drink any product of grapes (including raisins and wine, which would have been regular parts of their diet), cut his hair, or touch a dead body. We are never told that Samson violated the food commands, but his eyes got him in trouble in other ways. At one point he saw the carcass of a dead lion and ate the honey out of it – thereby touching a dead body. If anything, though, Samson is famous for his strength and how his wandering eyes got him into great trouble.
Our first instance was when he went to a neighboring town and saw a young Philistine woman with whom he then asked his parents to arrange a marriage. They were understandably disappointed and reluctant because of God’s prohibition of marriage with the pagan Canaan people, and they tried to talk him out of it. He insisted and that marriage ended with her death. (See Judges 14 and 15 for the full story.) Although Jesus wouldn’t say these words until about 1000 years later, perhaps they would have helped Samson: “Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those ogling looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt.” (Matthew 5:28 MSG). Samson’s eyes got him in trouble.
After an affair with a Philistine prostitute (Judges 16:1-3), the last woman Samson fell in love with was Delilah, another Philistine woman. Evidently his reputation as someone with renowned strength had preceded him because the rulers of the Philistines went to Delilah and said, “See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so we may tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.” (Judges 16:5 NIV) His “heart has been led by [his] eyes” (Job 31:7) He had allowed himself to fall in love with the ungodly women he saw, and now he was about to pay a steep price for that. After some whining and tricks, he finally gave in to her pleading and told her that if his hair was cut he would lose his strength. When he fell asleep on her lap someone shaved off his seven braids and “his strength left him” (Judges 16:19 NIV). When he awoke he did not realize his hair was gone, his strength was gone, or “the Lord had left him” (Judges 16:20 NIV). What a terribly sad statement. His eyes for foreign women led him to sin against God and then the Lord left him. The Philistines quickly seized him, gouged out his eyes, and imprisoned him.
If you’ve been around Christ’s Church for any length of time you’ve probably heard sermons on how we should guard our eyes, ears, and hearts against things that are not of God. That is still true and good, wise advice. But that’s not what I’m focusing on today. Instead I see how this was one facet of Samson’s basically “normal” humanity – complex, with good intentions, sinful, yet used by God. If we look through the Bible we see many examples of people who were used by God, yet were not perfect – David the murderer, Rahab the prostitute, Paul the persecutor of Christians. Perhaps you can see yourself in similarly mixed hues. Whomever is willing can be used by God to fulfill his purposes.
Before Samson’s first marriage the author/narrator of Judges tells us, “His parents did not know that this was from the Lord, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines; for at that time they were ruling over Israel.” (Judges 14:4 NIV) By the time that marriage was over, Samson had killed 30 Philistine men for their clothes, burned up all their crops ready to harvest, and “slaughtered many of them” (Judges 15:8). Later he used a “fresh jawbone of a donkey” to strike down 1000 Philistine men, ripped up a Philistine city’s gates in the middle of the night, and taunted Philistine leaders with false ways to cut his strength. After the episode with Delilah and his imprisonment, the hair of the blind and imprisoned Samson regrew, his strength returned, and he pushed down the columns holding up a Philistine temple – killing up to 3000 people. Through Samson’s wandering exploits, God eliminated some of the Philistines, His enemies.
If you’ve read his story before you know Samson was not a perfect man. I don’t need to go through his arrogance about the riddle at his first wedding (Judges 14) or his weakness against the whining and begging women in his life to show you proof. Yet, somehow in the midst of this story, he came back to his Hebrew heritage and Nazarite upbringing. As his shackled hands pushed against the temple’s pillars he remembered the One Who gave him his strength and prayed, “Sovereign Lord, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.” (Judges 16:28 NIV). As I read this story, God used this rather complex man to “confront” the Philistines.
May we, too – no matter how complex, sinful, messed up, or human we are – be willing to be used by God for his purposes.
Perfect God,
Thank you for stories like Samson that remind us of how much you love us, seek us, and have purposes for our life, even if our lives are messy, complex, and even sinful. Thank you for the reminder to carefully guard our eyes, ears, and hearts so that our spiritual bodies are filled with your Light, not the world’s darkness. Help us to think on things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and praiseworthy so that our minds are focused on you. We pray that you would use us to further your Kingdom for your Glory and we ask this in Jesus’s name, Amen.
““The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23 ESV)
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Philippians 4:8 ESV)
“But now I tell you: anyone who looks at a woman and wants to possess her is guilty of committing adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28 GNT)
“… if my heart has been led by my eyes…” (Job 31:7 NIV)