When he woke up, he thought, "I will do as before and shake myself free." But he didn't realize the LORD had left him. (Judges 16:20 NLT)
I find this to be one of the most disturbing verses in the Old Testament; if not the whole Bible. Since one aspect of the four-fold purpose of this website is to "stretch the comfortable", I want to alert those who read this column - especially Christian Leaders - to one particular inherent danger (among the many) that comes with leadership responsibility.
You may recognize the verse in question is related to the story of Samson. He is hardly what we would call the best role model for a leader. He made many bad decisions that got him into a great deal of strife. But there is one assumption that he made which, in turn, led to his downfall.
When he finally told Delilah the real source of his strength, she engineered one last attempt for the Philistine leaders to capture him. Samson was awakened but not before his hair was shaved from his head and his strength was gone.
His response to this threat was to say, "I will do as before and shake myself free." It sounds something akin to, "I'll just do what I did last time. It worked then, why not now?" Well, Samson, not this time because something has happened that you have yet to realise. The Lord has departed from you.
Samson, the key to being an effective leader among the people of God is knowing the Lord is with you and He is the strength of your life, not your hair. Your hair is a symbol of your dedication as a Nazirite.
"My hair has never been cut," he confessed, "for I was dedicated to God as a Nazirite from birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as anyone else." (v.17 NLT).
I think about my ordination/dedication to the Christian Ministry almost 40 years ago and those times since when I have seen God at work in our Church congregations. I've also sensed the temptation to try and duplicate God's work by substituting human ingenuity for divine initiative. It sounds something like this: "I will do as before and shake myself free." We learn the moves and think that all that is required is to repeat what we did last time.
I think it was Dr. Jack Hayford in one of his books who observed that not only individuals but Churches also can learn the moves that achieve results. Certain worship songs....certain styles of altar calls...certain appeals for money....certain manipulative terms and phrases...all we have to do is repeat what worked last time. However, this time there is another factor.
Where is the Lord in all this?
Why is it that so much of what we leaders do and see accomplished in our Churches can be explained in mere human terms? We simply do what we have always done and we always get what we have always got! Now that is not to deny that God often works through the ordinary dynamics of the natural world.
Part of the lesson from the story of Samson is that we need the presence of the Lord and we ought not to be presumptuous about His presence. The day may well come when we launch ourselves or our Church into some spiritual venture presuming that God is with us but ultimately to discover that "the Lord has departed and we didn't realise it".
"But God has promised under the New Covenant never to forsake or abandon us. How can you talk about Him departing from us?"
You're right, of course: God has made such a promise. However, I am not suggesting that He withdraws His presence; rather that He 'hides' His presence. God's presence can be passive or active. I have often experienced situations where I have known God has been present but, for whatever reason, He has not been active. At least that has been my perception.
I don't want to be like Samson. Instead of always doing what I've always done, I'd rather seek God for what He is doing in any particular situation. It seems to me that Jesus rarely (if ever) performed the same miracle the same way. There was a uniqueness each time He reached out to heal.
There was one time in particular when we were very tempted as a Church Leadership to try and imitate what was undoubtedly a visitation of God one Sunday morning. I'd like to share that story with you in (Part 2) of this reflection.
