Much less

“He had so much potential.  What a waste.”

How often do we hear these words.  We see this in athletes a lot of time.  A person has a lot of natural physical skills, and yet because of their inflated ego, or lack of worth ethic, they never quite meet the potential they had in their lives.

Even in everyday life, we meet people and think, “They could be so much more.  Why aren’t they?”

As I look at the life of Samson, I can’t help but think the same thing.  He was much less than all that God had planned for him.

He was dedicated to the Lord from before he was even conceived.  His parents raised him to be a Nazirite, dedicated to the Lord’s service.

But instead, he largely wasted his life, and the times that God used him seemed only incidental. 

Put another way, God in his grace used Samson to bring some measure of deliverance to the Israelites from the Philistines. But it was only done at Samson’s convenience, and often times, despite Samson’s actions.

What was wrong with Samson? 

I think there was one main problem.  Despite being a man dedicated to God’s service, he was more self-centered than God-centered.  He thought more about how to serve himself than he thought about serving God.

In fact, you never find one place in his whole story where he sought the leading for God.  He asked God for things.  But he never sought God’s leading.

You see this pattern throughout his life. 

The first major incident you see is his getting married to a Philistine woman. 

God had told the Israelites to never intermarry with the Canaanites.  And yet, Samson ignored God’s word, and the pleas of his parents, insisting on marrying this woman.

It says in Judges 14:4 that this was from the Lord.

But considering what God had commanded, and that he never contradicts himself, what I think this means is that when God saw that Samson was set on marrying this woman, he saw a way to accomplish his purposes despite Samson’s disobedience. 

And so he did so. Through Samson, he was able to help the Israelites against the Philistines.

But Samson never did so because he sought to please God. 

His concern wasn’t for delivering the people.  Rather, time and again, you see his motivation was revenge.  Time and again you see the words, “get even” or “revenge” as his reasons for action.

But how much better would it have been if his motivation had come from his love for God and for the people.

Instead, you see a total lack of concern for either, and the call God put on his life.  You see this also in two other incidents.

One was when he approached the dead body of a lion, when God explicitly commanded that Nazirites not even approach the dead bodies of people they love.

You see it again when he told Delilah how to destroy his vow to God by cutting his hair, simply to get sexual favors from her.  And in the end, it cost him as he was captured by his enemies, had his eyes gouged out, and forced to work as a slave.

Still with all that, God used him once more to help the Israelites by destroying 3000 Philistines, but again, one truly questions Samson’s motivation.  His last words were,

O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes. (Judges 16:28)

Samson accomplished much in his life.  He helped the Israelites for 20 years. 

But his life was much less than God intended because he was self-centered and never took God’s call on his life seriously.

How about you?  God wants to use you for his kingdom.  He wants you to make a difference in the lives of the people around you.

When you see God in heaven someday, will he say, “Well done good and faithful servant?”

Or will he say, “You could’ve been much more?”