Judges 14:17 And she wept before him the seven days, while their feast lasted: and it came to pass on the seventh day, that he told her, because she lay sore upon him: and she told the riddle to the children of her people
Maybe you have used one of those age apps where you enter your photo and the app gives you a picture of what you will look like in twenty, thirty, or forty years. Those are truly brave people who engage in such acts. The premise of the app is that you can have some idea what your face is going to look like in forty years. I don’t know how accurate that is, but at least you have some metric by which to guess what the future will be.
Having a self-awareness about what we are, and by extension what we will be, is not a bad thing. I’ve often thought that people become more like themselves the older they get. Maybe your granddad is extremely sweet or extremely sour. That is an exaggeration of what has always been there. I have noted that of myself. Traits that may have been somewhat submerged when I was ten years old are prominent now. The traits grew as I grew and have become more pronounced.
I often say about we as people, “We are all playing out parts flawlessly.” Take any given situation between two people. It is amazing how you can predict what each person will do because they are doing so consistent with their character and a lifetime of history. So, it does not take a rocket scientist to know what may lie ahead. Take your genetics. Whatever a person struggles with when they are seventy, eighty, or ninety years old was probably in seed form in their body when they were ten; they just did not know it.
Can a younger person know their makeup and genetics and change their outcomes? In some cases, perhaps they can. Can they do the same thing when they are fifty years old? Perhaps, but it is much less likely. I’m not saying you are doomed to your past, your genetics, or what your family has been, or that you are automatically blessed because you have good genetics or a good family. There is so much about the future we cannot predict. However, in many ways you know the future, and it is now.
As an example of this, I think about the well-known judge Samson. In Judges 14, Samson married a Philistine woman. Verse 16 says, “And Samson’s wife wept before him, and said, Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not: thou hast put forth a riddle unto the children of my people [the Philistines], and hast not told it me. And he [Samson] said unto her, Behold, I have not told it my father or my mother, and shall I tell it thee?” If you are familiar with Samson’s story and I left out the word “wife,” you might think this woman was Delilah, another woman involved with Samson later in his life. What you find here is precisely what you find later. Samson would always live to please self.
Now, God would intervene and overrule to accomplish His purpose through Samson. God is going to win with or without us. My point is that this story is repeated time and again in Samson’s life. Samson has a secret, a woman weeps, he relents, and that gives occasion to fight the enemies of God. So, you know the future. Samson had a pattern of pleasing self, not listening to his parents, a weakness for women.
If I were to ask, “What was Samson’s greatest weakness?” you might reply, “Women,” but that would be wrong. Samson’s weakness was that he would not listen. He did not accept the guidance God had provided for him, and that left him prey to all his basest instincts. Samson didn’t listen and therefore ended up in an inevitable position. Samson’s death after being rendered helpless by Delilah is very presaged by the story in Judges 14. Samson was utterly consistent. All it took was time. Like something you have in your body that takes time and opportunity to become a danger, so Samson had things in his life, temperament, and relationships with others that were going to come to fruition. So, you know the future and it is now.
If that is true, there are three things we need to do. First, we need to listen. Samson saw this woman, a Philistine who was God’s enemy, and told his parents, “I want her. Get her for me for a wife.” His parents objected, but he said, “Get her for me for she pleases me.” He didn’t listen. All of us, regardless of age, have authorities in our lives to whom we should listen. If Samson had listened, then perhaps the outcome for him personally would have been different. Again, God is going to win one way or the other. God was going to have victory over the Philistines, but it wasn’t victory for Samson. The older we get the harder it is to listen to people, but all of us need to listen because the future is now. What trajectory are you on?
Second, we need awareness of self. I am happy you are not a slave to your past and your genetics. There are things that can change, but reading Samson’s story reminds me how often I think, “I will never change” or “They will never change.” They have had experience and they just don’t seem to learn. You are not a slave to your genetics, history, or background, but you need to be aware of what you are. Samson seems not to have done that.
We need to listen and be self-aware, and we need God’s Spirit to help us with battles within. The Spirit of God came upon Samson on a number of occasions, even though that seems in contrast to much of Samson’s story, the incredible supernatural power and utter weakness of character and the fact that God’s Spirit came upon him but he was disobedient to God. If God the Spirit enabled Samson to defeat Philistines, could that same God not help Samson defeat the enemies within? Often the greatest threats are the ones within our own sinful hearts. We need God’s Spirit for battles within. God gave supernatural power to Samson to lift city gates from their roots, to defeat huge numbers of enemies with meager resources, and to do incredible things. The same God who gave supernatural strength to Samson is the same God who can help you defeat the enemies that may be within.
You know the future, and it is now. It is not unchangeable, but if we are going to have the kinds of change that are necessary in life, we need to listen, to be self-aware, and to allow the Spirit of God to help us with battles that are within.