This morning I was reading through the story of Samson and found it very inspiring. Samson was called by God to confront the Philistines and basically went around picking fights. Some of the exploits of his life include:

1. Killing 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey.

2. Tearing a lion apart with his hands.

3. Pulling down an entire temple on thousands of Philistines right before he died.

Needless to say, the dude was a beast. I’m sure that most if not all of us have heard the story of Samson and Delilah. Delilah kept asking Samson to tell her the secret of his strength and eventually he gave in. Once he told her and she cut his hair, the strength of God left him. You see, Samson was a Nazirite from birth which meant that no razor could be used on his head as a part of his commitment to God. Once his hair was cut and his vow was broken, God’s strength departed from this warrior. He became as weak as any other man and the Philistines were able to subdue him.

What spoke to me in the story of Samson is the difference between his ability when God was with him and when God wasn’t. If we seek to follow the Lord and fight the battles that he calls us to fight, we can expect God’s equipping strength to be with us in the same way that it was with Samson. We will be able to do things that we never dreamed possible. As we fight for our marriages, our families and the different missions that God calls us to, our faithful God will give us his strength to fight. If however, we choose to fight battles that God never called us to fight, we won’t experience his blessing or his equipping.

What battles are you fighting? Have you been experiencing God’s strength? Perhaps we all need to reassess where we’re fighting and if the battles are worthy causes.