Imperfect but Abiding

Recognizing patterns is part of life. We identify patterns that work so we can repeat them. We identify patterns that don’t so we can avoid them. And sometimes, we miss the patterns entirely.

A lot of people are familiar with the story of Samson, one of the judges of Israel. God gave him extraordinary strength, but when his hair was cut (breaking his Nazarite vow), God took his strength, too. This is the part of the story everyone remembers.

The part of the story that doesn’t receive as much focus is Delilah’s pattern. Before Samson told her the true(ish) source of his strength, he misled her three times. The information provided in Judges 16 shows us that every time he told her one of these lies, she did the very thing that he said would remove his strength, and she called the Philistines to kill him. In Judges 16:16, we’re told that Delilah pressed him for answers so often that “his soul was annoyed to death” (NASB 1995), and he finally told her the whole story.

Throughout this story, people find themselves wondering why he would tell her the truth. Delilah had established a clear pattern here, and it was not a positive one. She had proven she was going to try and take his strength from him to hand him over to the Philistines, so why would he stick around long enough for her to annoy him?

The answer is contained earlier in Judges 16: Samson loved Delilah. In fact, the only time the Bible says Samson loved anything was in verse 4, where it states explicitly that he loved her.

Love can be extremely blind. Samson believed he loved Delilah, and this likely made it easy for him to ignore the pattern she had clearly established. It might seem obvious from this side of the text, but many people do this all the time. It is easy to ignore patterns when we believe we love someone. For whatever reason, we may choose to write off (or even fail to notice) problems we witness. It may only be in hindsight that we realize we didn’t heed important warning signals.

This is why it is so important not to lean on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). When we do, we’re setting ourselves up for trouble. James 1:5 encourages us to ask for wisdom when we’re lacking and tells us that God will provide it. That wisdom often comes from time in prayer and scripture, but it may also come from conversations with trusted friends.

It’s also important to give ourselves grace when we discover that we missed the patterns. I’m speaking to myself here, too. That can be one of the hardest things to do, but we must. I’m personally always more willing to extend that grace to others than I am to myself. However, I also need to recognize that I learned from those experiences with behavioral pattern blindness. It’s by the grace of God I saw it eventually, and because He has given me this wisdom, I will hopefully know better next time as long as I remember not to rely on my own understanding.

Samson was not perfect. Like all of us, he had plenty of sin to his name. He also missed a pattern, and that compounded with his pride brought about his downfall. When I read his story now, though, I see myself in some of those pieces. I too have missed patterns that I thought I should have seen.

As I try to extend some grace to Samson, I’ll also try to save a little for myself. God has shown me time and again that by reminding myself of grace, I can facilitate repentance and growth, but only with God’s guidance. It takes work, prayer, and reminders from Scripture and great friends, but I hope that by writing this, I can help others as well as myself. I hope that you can show yourselves some grace, too.