“And he was sore athirst, and called on the Lord, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?” Judges 15:18
Early this month at bible camp, I was able to hear a challenge from one of the speakers. He preached partially on this verse, and pointed out something interesting. He said that when he was in bad situations, Samson called out TO God, but not FOR God.
See, Samson’s life is primarily defined by self-centered actions. In chapter 14, he defied his parents to marry a woman from an enemy country because “She pleaseth me well.” After that, he breaks his Nazarite vows and goes to a vineyard for a revel, and on the way back eats honey out of a lion he’d killed previously (sometimes things seem sweet, even when they’re coming from a corpse). Even here, in Judges 15, when God gives him a massive victory with the jawbone of an ass, the name he gives the hill translates to “Jawbone Hill”, where he gives God NONE of the glory. Immediately after, he is overtaken by thirst, and tries to guilt trip God himself into giving him water! When God listens to him, he names the well “the well of him that cried”, once again refusing to acknowledge God in the miracle. Even when he dies, his prayer to God is to give him his strength back so that HE can be avenged.
This is where we see the distinction between calling TO God and calling FOR God. Samson prayed to God many times in his life, but each time he was asking for God to do something in his life, never acknowledging that his life was God’s in the first place. It’s easy to become disconnected from God in our lives, looking at him as some sort of a genie who helps us get our wishes in life, or seeing him as a merchant we can barter with for blessings. God doesn’t work like that – he wants to build a relationship with us.
Samson only wanted to use God and the people around him for his own pleasure – what about you?
