Judges 12-15; Psalm 63
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So far in Judges all the leaders God chose were adults when God
called them and raised them up as leaders, until Samson. Samson is the first to be announced by
an angel before he was born.
The part of today’s reading that stood out to me the most was
actually about Samson’s parents.
First of all Samson’s mother, the wife of Manoah, had to take on part of
the calling by living out the Nazirite vow while Samson was in the womb because
the angel said he would be a Nazirite of God from birth until death. (Read
Numbers 6 to review what the Nazirite vow was all about.) In order for God’s plan to be
fulfilled she had her responsibility and sacrifice before Samson was even born.
Her husband Manoah’s response to the news is what I really
loved. He didn’t doubt God, but he
immediately prayed, “O Lord, I beg you, let the man of God you sent to us {the angel who spoke to his wife} come
again to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born.”
Now, people can argue whether or not Samson’s parents did a good
job in raising him. The Bible
doesn’t give us a lot of details on that part. It is clear that Samson makes some bad choices, and I’ll
probably spend some time tomorrow reflecting about that. But the point today is that Manoah
recognized he needed divine intervention to raise a child chosen by God for a
special purpose.
This reminded me that my husband and I as parents need to beg the
Lord to teach us how to raise up our children to become the men and women God
created them to be. We need God’s
help and guidance to see the strengths He’s given our children and how to
develop them. I want to see them
through His eyes and see how to encourage them and build them up to be great
leaders and servants of Jesus Christ.
I want to be able to see the areas where they struggle and know how to
teach them to overcome those things.
I want to know what’s in their hearts…what breaks their hearts…what
makes their hearts sing.
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