Delilah was a heroine. Kind of. At the very least, she’s a fantastic example of the power women hold over the men who love us. That’s a whole lot of responsibility.
Seriously. Go back, and read the story, again. It’s in Judges 13-16. Samson was a wicked, selfish, womanizing shame to his parents. He used his God-given strength for his OWN glory, and to seek vengeance upon HIS OWN adversaries. Rather than being the strong leader and hero he was created to be, Samson was all about self-gratification.
Then he met Delilah. And everything changed. Suddenly, someone mattered more than he did.
According to the record, Delilah never LIED to Samson. She wheedled, and nagged the man that had been slaughtering her neighbors, in order to learn the secret of his strength, bring him under submission, and collect a hefty reward. Each time he told her a false secret, she tried it. Each time she tried another method, she risked her own life with her betrayal. Personally, I have a hard time picturing myself being this brazen. I mean, can you imagine repeatedly demanding the secret of a man’s strength, when you’ve tried to emasculate him, time and time again? Shameless.
Delilah must have been quite the woman, because he gave it to her, knowing that she would use it against him. Why? Do you ever wonder? I do. Maybe Samson was tired of the nagging, and preferred prison to her arms. Maybe Samson was sick with guilt over his own pathetic character. Maybe the poor guy just couldn’t deny her anything. The story doesn’t tell us. Delilah’s motivation, as a Philistine woman, makes perfect sense to me, here. (Stop the crop-burning, Philistine-slaughtering foreigner, and collect a bunch of money? OKAY!) Do I understand Samson’s actions? Not so much. I guess it’s because I’m a woman. Notice that the story never once says that Delilah fell in love with Samson. Samson loved Delilah. Period.
And this love changed him, and changed the world around them. Presumably, it killed them both, because we never hear from Delilah, again. (“Good riddance,” my male readers are saying. I hear you.) You will notice, however, if you go and read Judges 16, that after Delilah humbles Samson, he becomes a man who prays to God to give him strength, rather than a man who assumes that the strength is his own to do with as he wills.
The story concludes by pointing out that Samson killed more of Israel’s enemies in his death than his life, and that he killed over 3000 people, including the Philistines’ Lords, or leaders in his final, suicidal attack.
So, tonight, I’d like to point out that Delilah was a patriotic, brave woman, who brought an out-of-control, murderous loose cannon down to his knees before his God. And like it or not, she was an instrument of God’s will in Samson’s life. Sometimes, a man just has to learn the hard way.
Oh, be careful, little mouth, what you say.
Here’s the deal. God spoke, and the WORLDS were created. We are created in Gods image. What do you think happens when we speak?
Self-help gurus teach it.
New age writers publish best-selling books about it.
We fear it.
It’s the power of the tongue.
Tell your child that he is stupid, and he will think that he is. He will act like he is. He will give up on learning. He will BECOME what you called him.
Stand in front of the mirror. Tell yourself that you are fat. Get discouraged. Get hungry. Have a box of twinkies to console yourself. You’ve created your reality.
The laws of positivity and negativity are not some New Age Psycho-Babble. Scriptures ABOUND with the blessings and curses of parents over children, and their results. When King Balak hired Balaam to curse the Israelites, God intervened. Because, like it or not, our words have power. This power, it appears, is not just over ourselves, but others, as well.
I suspect, in fact, that if we truly understood the power of our own mouths, our own words, to affect change in ourselves, and the world around us, we would TREMBLE.
Death and life [are] in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. Proverbs 18:21
That’s a lot of power.
What are you speaking into your life, today? What are you speaking into your family members’ lives? Are you a fountain of Life, or a black hole of Death? It’s your choice.
“Telling it like it is” is not a sufficient excuse for speaking negative things into reality. Every person, and situation has two sides. Speak the Truth, with LOVE. Focus on the positive, and you will create more of it. Focus on the negative, and unfortunately, the same is true.
Think about these two sentences:
“He’s a loser.”
“He’s becoming a great man.”
Both could be factual. Whether the loser becomes a great man will depend largely on what words he speaks into his own life, and the words that are spoken into it by others. Do those words give hope? Do they speak life? Do they build up? Do they demand more? When we speak the negative, we accept it as the reality; we do nothing to combat it.
In the interest of harnessing the power of the tongue, and maximizing LIFE, we should choose our words carefully. And if we just aren’t yet in a positive frame of mind, perhaps it’s time to take the advice of a Disney cartoon. “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything AT ALL!” When people insist on speaking death and damnation into our souls, perhaps we should tell them to stop, or shut the door in their faces. If Balaam is any example, it’s what God would do.
For my part, I choose to embrace the positive possibilities of life as though they were already my reality. I choose to speak the beautiful potential of others as though it were accomplished, already. And I hope that life and death really are in the power of the tongue, as I chant, “life, Life, LIFE! And that more abundantly!”