Devastation and Finding Your Center at Bottom

Synopsis     Judges 16:24-17:10     7/14/2018  

The Philistines celebrated with a great feast. They intended to honor their god for delivering Samson into their power. They called the blinded and weak Samson to the temple so they could mock him.

He asked his keepers to be led to the central columns so he could lean on them and rest. Then Samson prayed to God for his power to return. He pushed hard against the columns and the entire temple building collapsed.

In the report it says that, “Those he killed by his dying were more than those he had killed during his lifetime.” Samson was buried with honor in Israel where he had judged for twenty years.

When the Worst Thing Happens

It’s hard to imagine what this might have been like for Samson. All his life he had this extraordinary strength. All his life he had this extraordinary favor of God. He never lost. He always triumphed over his adversaries. No matter how difficult his circumstances, he knew he could always find a way out.

But, there was no way out. And, his worst fears had come upon him. He was at the bottom. It was rock bottom. Samson was powerless and feeble and blind. He was the mockery of his adversaries.

So, now it could get no worse.

Devastation and Finding Your Center at Bottom

There is a liberating power in having lost everything. When every outcome I’ve ever feared has come upon me, and I’ve survived – there is no more fear. And with no more fear, I am free to receive the moment.

I’m no longer trapped in a future-thought that is so abhorrent I cringe. I’m no longer stuck in the cycle of recrimination for past failure. My circumstances are what they are. There’s a breathing.

The freedom is to seek a word of wisdom. I seek the one whom I have formally known to be my all in all. And from the bottom, this wisdom affects so profoundly that I wonder how I never saw it before. I wonder at how I could have been so blind. I wonder how I could have been so caught up.

And in that moment, there is only listening. Waiting in anticipation for a word to fall from the lips of God.

“My God, in you I trust; do not let me be disgraced; do not let my enemies gloat over me” Psalm 25:2