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Yesterday morning I read about Samson's
early life in the Bible (Judges 13-16). Have you ever read it from the
perspective of his parents? I was a little shocked. We've been having
challenging times with our boys. Bad attitudes, subtle and blatant
disobedience, push back all over the place. The sort of behaviour that leaves
you drained at the end of the day. On top of that at least one email about
each boy from the school this week, with concerns about various things. And one
boy who's needed considerable scaffolding at night to get his assignments
done.
I'm tired and wondering if I can manage to get
through the next eight years of parenting teenage at school.
But then I read Samson's story. His poor
parents!
Before he was born his parents were childless,
his mother was barren. An angel appeared
to her and told her she was going to
have a baby boy. And he gave her some specific instructions: she was to be
careful not to drink wine or fermented drink and no eating "unclean"
things (as defined by the Jewish law). Don't cut your son's hair. He's going to
be a permanent Nazarite. (Someone especially set aside as a holy man, something
like the monk of today.)
She went and told her husband, describing the
man she saw as "very awesome" (NIV). Her husband, Manoah, prayed,
asking God to send the man of God again to teach them how to parent this boy.
The angel came again, but to the woman who was
out in the field alone, she fetched her husband and they had an
interesting interaction.
Manoah asked what should govern the boy's life
and work. The angel repeated the instructions he gave Samson's mother
(she's nameless). Then Manoah invited the man to stay for a meal of goat. The
Bible notes that he doesn't realise that it is an angel.
At this point the angel starts to sound
irritated. He doesn't want any food, but urges them to prepare a burnt offering
to the Lord. They do, but first they ask him his name. The angel tells them it
is beyond understanding (some translations call it "wonderful").
The angel ascended in the flame of the burnt
offering. Manual and his wife "fell with their faces to the
ground" and realised it was an angel they'd seen when he didn't appear
again.
Manual exclaimed that they were sure to
die now that they'd "seen God", but his wife realistically noted he'd
accepted their offering, so surely they wouldn't die.
I can only imagine that they needed such a
clear demonstration of God's purpose in this young man's life because he
certainly wouldn't have been an easy child to raise. We hear a lot about
Delilah and the incident at the end of his life knocking a whole building down.
But his young adult years are also recorded in strong, colourful terms.
The context of his birth is that Israel
had been up to bad stuff again and God gave them into the hand of the
Philistines for 40 years. Samson was his chosen man to get them out of there.
We first hear that the spirit of the Lord has
stirred in Samson at the end of Judges 13, then the next chapter starts with
Samson choosing a Philistine wife. He bluntly told his parents, "I saw a
woman, go get her for me now!" Ouch. They try to reason with him,
suggesting it would be better to marry within their own people, but he
just cuts them off and says this is who she wants. Verse four tells the reader
that this wife was God's plan's to go into bat for Israel.
This courtship didn't start well. It didn't
end well either. At their wedding he managed to alienate the "thirty
companions" his wife's people had chosen to be with Samson (see 14:12-18).
The end result? He killed 30 men of the town and stole their clothes to settle
what he'd started. And his wife was given to his best man.
Later he went to visit his wife and was turned
away by her father. He went on to avenge the Philistine fields and they avenged
that loss by killing Samson's wife and father.
From this unlikely start Samson led Israel
under the rule of the Philistines for 20 years.
But just think of his parents watching this.
Their eldest and presumably only son's marriage in tatters from the very start
and he's out there killing his in-laws and others from their community. What a
disaster. What a strong-willed young man.
But somehow, in the midst of all this, God's
will was done. Though this man seemed to be out of control, his birth was
clearly organised by God for a purpose. Though there's a lot we don't
understand, can you imagine how his parents felt? They didn't know how the
story ended, or the privilege of the editorial notes that we have in the Bible.
They must have despaired at times. Wondered if
they'd done all that they were supposed to do. Wondered why God had given them
such a child.
Just as we wonder at times. Just as we despair
of the future for our kids. Don't you wish sometimes that you could know the
end of the story? The editorial notes that might be written if we knew what was
going on below the surface?
In the end as parents we can't do anything
about this but look to God for wisdom every day. Entrust our kids and our
parenting to Him. Then wait and hope and trust.
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