The story of Samson is next. Is he Achilles, the sometimes brooding warrior with a physical vulnerability that proves his downfall? Or is he Oedipus, an otherwise good king undone by a prophecy and a riddle, who ends life with his eyes gouged out? Or instead is he Hercules, a man born of woman and a god/angel, who performs superhuman feats of strength? I cannot help thinking of these legends while reading about Samson. He killed a thousand men with the "fresh jawbone of an ass"??!! Are you kidding me? His story just feels different to me than what I've read so far.
But Samson is, at bottom, a man like me. He is volatile and impulsive. He is brooding and secretive. He is crafty and violent. He is vulnerable. He is a man. He was intended by God. And he was beloved by God, as I am in all my imperfections. One idea I take away from his story is that all of us, even I, can do heroic things, if I only call on God for strength as Samson did. Blinded, humiliated, chained to the temple columns, he called on God for strength and brought the temple down on the Philistines within it, himself included. A final act of trust in God, it brought about the destruction of the temple and his own death as well. It prefigures Jesus, who through his own death destroyed the old temple, and rose again in three days to rebuild it.
Even when I feel defeated, as I have lately, I must remember Samson and remember to call on God for strength. And to be grateful because He is always there for me. Always.
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