The bills stacked and tumbled over the kitchen table at home.  The babies were crying in the backseat as I tried to think of what we had left in the pantry for dinner that night.  Tempers were short throughout the house and beyond, and it felt like it was me against the world.

Have you ever felt that way?  – Like it’s you against the world?

Maybe you just lost your job.  Maybe you are going through trying times in your marriage.  Maybe you’ve lost someone.  Maybe you had to file bankruptcy and lost what felt like everything.  Maybe it’s just been a really really bad day.

In Judges (14 and) 15, Samson takes a wife who betrays his trust.  He chooses to exact revenge and makes a lot of people very angry.  Before he knows it, he’s lost both his wife and his father-in-law and everyone wants him dead.  Literally.  It’s Samson against the “world.”

Well, although Samson is delivered by his people to the Phillistines in ropes, God burns the ropes so it falls off and Samson fights and kills a thousand men with…(wait for it)…the jawbone of a donkey.

(Now, did you get that?  He kills a thousand ready-to-fight men with a jaw bone.)

After Samson fought those men, he was so thirsty and tired he thought he was going to die.  So, he cried out to the Lord, “You have given your servant this great victory.  Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”  Then God opened up a rock and water came out of it.  Samson drank and regained his strength and went on to lead Israel for twenty years in the days of the Phillistines.

This is one powerful story.

Not only did it FEEL like the world was against Samson, but for him it really was.  But, he gave it to God and God freed him from the ropes that bound him.  Everyday, God offers the exact same thing to us.  He offers to free us from the things that hold us down, to set us free.  Then, through God’s power, Samson was able to have the strength to beat down one thousand men who wanted him dead with a JAW BONE!

Oh, but it doesn’t stop there!

After his great victory, Samson was tired.  He began to feel defeated.  How often does that happen to us?  -We have this awesome victory in God and the next thing we know, we’re back in a hard place.  Well, instead of whining about it, Samson called out to God.  He recognized that God had helped him and asked Him to help him some more.  And, you know what?  God did.  God didn’t just give him a water puddle, God gave Samson flowing water.  Then, Samson drank and was strengthened.  I’m willing to bet this wasn’t just any water.  I’m also willing to bet that God would love to strengthen you and me…any time, anywhere.  We just have to stop complaining and ask and believe.

Then, Samson went on to lead the Phillistines for twenty years.  Oh, how easy it is to skip over that last part with a “Yeh, okay, good for him.”  But, this guy was just FIGHTING AGAINST THE WORLD and now, HE’S LEADING IT!

It may feel like we’re fighting the world today, BUT GOD can change our situations quickly and bless us abundantly.  We just have to let him.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Welcome back!