Maybe I am just on a sentimental kick today, but this is one beautiful picture! For those of you who have had a "special friend" in the early grades in school, this little photo will have a special meaning. Who knows if they will ever get together as adults, but it would be nice to think they might! Sometimes, however, things don't always work out and here is a good example from the book of Judges.Judges 16:1-21 (WEB)
1) Samson went to Gaza, and saw there a prostitute, and went in to her.
2) The Gazites were told, “Samson is here!” They surrounded him, and laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet all the night, saying, “Wait until morning light, then we will kill him.”
3) Samson lay until midnight, and arose at midnight, and laid hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron.
4) It came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.
5) The lords of the Philistines came up to her, and said to her, “Entice him, and see in which his great strength lies, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.”
6) Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and what you might be bound to afflict you.”
7) Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven green cords that were never dried, then shall I become weak, and be as another man.”
8) Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven green cords which had not been dried, and she bound him with them.
9) Now she had an ambush waiting in the inner room. She said to him, “The Philistines are on you, Samson!” He broke the cords, as a string of tow is broken when it touches the fire. So his strength was not known.
10) Delilah said to Samson, “Behold, you have mocked me, and told me lies: now please tell me with which you might be bound.”
11) He said to her, “If they only bind me with new ropes with which no work has been done, then shall I become weak, and be as another man.”
12) So Delilah took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said to him, “The Philistines are on you, Samson!” The ambush was waiting in the inner room. He broke them off his arms like a thread.
13) Delilah said to Samson, “Until now, you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me with what you might be bound.” He said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web.”
14) She fastened it with the pin, and said to him, “The Philistines are on you, Samson!” He awakened out of his sleep, and plucked away the pin of the beam, and the web.
15) 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 have not told me where your great strength lies.”
16) It happened, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, that his soul was troubled to death.
17) He told her all his heart, and said to her, “No razor has ever come on my head; for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will go from me, and I will become weak, and be like any other man.”
18) When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up this once, for he has told me all his heart.” Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her, and brought the money in their hand.
19) She made him sleep on her knees; and she called for a man, and shaved off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him.
20) She said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” He awoke out of his sleep, and said, “I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free.” But he didn’t know that Yahweh had departed from him.
21) The Philistines laid hold on him, and put out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he ground at the mill in the prison.
(Judges 16:1-21, WEB)
Samson was quite a character; blessed by God with exceptional strength, but subject to all the weakness of the male of the species. He took what he wanted out of life without regard for the wishes of his creator and ultimately paid a price for it. Samson had lost that purity that the kids in the picture obviously have and that loss was a great one indeed!!! In the next chapter of Judges, we see God using Samson, but I can't help but wonder what Samson's life would have been like if he had remained pure. In case you are wondering, my first girlfriend was named Susan and I used to bring her flowers and we would sit in the front seat on the school bus. Love is a wonderful thing; somehow, it was extra special in the first grade.