Know Your Weakness

Samson is not often seen as a spiritually perceptive man.  Because he was a man the Spirit came upon with power and made him strong, people look at his life as a tragic waste.  He loved Philistine women, visited harlots, and ate honey from a swarm in a lion's carcase!  Yet despite his many flaws and foibles, I still contend he had rare wisdom for one simple reason:  he knew his weakness.  When Delilah asked him the secret of his supernatural strength, he knew that if his hair was cut he would be "weak, and be like any other man."  He tried many times to throw her off the scent, but after she pestered him to the point of death it says in Judges 16:17:  "...he told her all his heart, and said to her, "No razor has ever come upon my head, for I have been a Nazarite to God from my mother's womb. If I am shaven, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man."

People use the common phrase, "You don't know your own strength."  I say the opposite can be true:  we often don't know what makes us weak.  Samson knew the one thing that would make him weak as any man, and therefore he avoided doing it.  He never would have cut his hair, but Delilah was happy to oblige!  Satan is our Delilah, lulling us to sleep on his knees.  The trouble is, we often don't know we are weak until we are beaten, blinded, and bound!  In "Batman Begins," Bruce Wayne as a child falls into an empty well.  The butler Alfred said, "Took quite a fall, didn't we, Master Bruce?"  The father of Bruce replied, "And why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up."  When we fall, sometimes we can't get up alone.  Bruce couldn't.  Spiritually speaking, when we fall we need the Good Shepherd Jesus Christ to lift us up.  More than learning to pick ourselves up, we ought to learn from how we fell in the first place to prevent falling again.

I have heard many people discuss the liberty we have in Christ.  What is commonly discussed is the importance not to allow our liberty to stumble or offend others.  Drinking alcohol is a pat example.  Many people through their lives struggle with alcoholism.  If my drinking wine with dinner and having a beer with the boys emboldens others to drink, it would be to their detriment and possibly their destruction.  Therefore Christians are called to honour God by valuing the conscience of others above their own freedom.  Consider Romans 14:21:  "It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak."  The very last word of this verse is not often talked about.  We should not do anything by which our brother could be made to stumble, be offended, or be made weak.  It is wise to consider:  are my actions causing others - my spouse, children, and fellow believers - to become weak?

The first and most important aspect of the application of the passage is to answer this question personally:  what is my weakness?  What makes me weak to resist temptation?  What weakens my faith or resolve?  Is it a thought pattern?  Something I place before my eyes or something I eat or drink?  A lack of prayer or reading God's Word?  As Christians, we have the power of God within us.  But what makes you weak as any other man?  What causes us to stumble and trip over the same obstacles and fall for the same tricks every time?  It is a wise man who not only knows his own weakness, but avoids everything which causes himself or others to be weakened.  We can only find true strength through faith in our God, the One who has become for us Wisdom!

Samson knew what made him weak.  Do you?