Here I Am

To be a better Poet

Here’s a poem I wrote a while ago: 

Delilah

“How can you say ‘I love you’

When your heart is not with me?”

Delilah’s words to betray the Jew

There was no man as mighty as he

But love made the Lion weak

She was as honey to his soul

Silver pieces for a man at his peak

She had the Nazarene in a hole

-

His long locks on her knees

To slumber with a deceptive caress

And a playful last tease

Deaf to the spirit’s cry of regress

Flirting with sin leaves no man unscarred

For the first time, capture is a reality

Shackled to love, he had let down his guard

Deadly affection with sight as a fee

-

-

Personally I do not like the ending. My dad said I should play around with this poem and write it from different perspectives. Write it from Samsons point of view, Delilahs point of view or play around with the tenses, write it in the present tense for example. I want to be a better poet. I’m going to start with this poem. I’ll focus on this poem and alter it. 

Friend’s lesson from Samson:

The beauty of sharing thoughts together when reading something, especially the Bible, is the different perspectives that show up. I asked my friend to read up on Samson and he noticed this: 

Trust your instincts. Even though Samson loved her, when she asked him the source of his strength, he lied to her multiple times. So he knew it was a bad move to tell her. Until he eventually caved in. 

Dad’s lessons from Samson

I found the story of Samson sobering and saddening. He was just a guy like me screaming YA BISH! and shrugging the status quo. He was a guy who refused to be part of the mould but his eyes were put out and he died horribly. I went to my dad with my thoughts and as per he had lessons of his own: 

Samson found a soul tie but not his soul mate. Delilah was just a soul tie, and this is what happens when we lend our bodies and emotions to others, we create soul ties. And sexual sin is the only sin you commit against yourself. 

Samson emphasises the need to Know Thyself. If the devil knows you cannot steal, he won’t put tempt you with money. But if he knows your eye wanders, if he knows your weakness is females, of course he will throw them at you. Starve your weakness. “Flee youthful lusts”, run, sprint! 

God said “it is not good for man to be alone” so it is definitely worth praying about, because even if you don’t want a relationship, there are people looking for a relationship with you.

A woman can be the difference between heaven and hell

In the end, lack of focus is why Samson and why men fail. Gravity is on the side of the person below you. It is easier to pull someone down than to pull someone up. FOCUS on what God wants for you. 

My lesson from Samson

Right from the very start of Samson’s manhood, he had an eye for the Philistine women. In fact that is Samson’s first act and first word in the scriptures. Judges 14:1 “I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines; now therefore, get her for me as a wife.”

So, from the get go, Samson had wrong desires and despite the fall out and betrayal from the woman in Timnah, he doesn’t question his desires. He seems to answer fear with rage but he has no idea how his first encounter with love and betrayal is a foreshadowing of the future. 

Lesson: Examine your desires very carefully! Learn from betrayal and heartache instead of descending into anger.

However, Samson was not just a brute as I imagined. He had the qualities of a leader. If you notice, he is a man of his word, what he says he will do, he does. Plus he judged Israel for twenty years.

Lesson: The Bible doesn’t do stereotypes. Samson was so imperfect it is amazing God used him. He was distinctly different from any judge before or after him. The fact that he didn’t give two flying monkeys about what anyone thought makes him one of my favourite characters. He is not a “typical” leader.

The last verse of Judges 15 says “And he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines”, the first verse of chapter 16 says “Now Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there, and went in to her”.

What a strange juxtaposition of verses. It heralds the beginning of the end for Samson. Straight after he sleeps with a prostitute, he falls in love with Delilah. I find it interesting that the Bible doesn’t say “lusted after” or “sought after”, no “he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah”. He genuinely loved her. He fell in love with a woman who was eager to trade his love for money - a substantial amount to be fair. 

Lesson: Continuous indulgence in wrongful desires will eventually blind you and cloud your judgement. 

I read somewhere that a man’s IQ drops when speaking to an attractive woman but it seems Samson lost every single dime of common sense. Every time I read this passage I feel like screaming, “Samson, you idiot, can you not see she is betraying you?!” Three times! Three traps! Three ambushes!

Lesson: This is a prime example of how love makes man blind. No man is immune to it. 

Judges 16:19 Then she lulled him to sleep on her knees

Lesson: Look at how affection and tenderness can lead to doom. Beware! 

The rest of the story and the way it ends is quite depressing. A promising destiny destroyed, a might warrior cut short, the fact that he kills more Philistines in his death than he did when he was alive is a hollow victory. 

I decided to read the story of Samson in order to learn something about relationships and desires. I have learnt a lot. 

By prayer you revolt against the tyranny of hell. Have confidence that God is always looking after you. That is the beauty of the story of Samson.

To his lover- Delilah, Samson was worth thousands of pieces of silver, to his own blood brothers, Joseph was worth 20 pieces of silver, to His twelfth disciple Jesus was worth 30 pieces of silver. I guess the old adage is true. Only those close to you can hurt you.

But this also shows that men can put prices on each other but ONLY GOD knows our true value. So men might limit us by what they think we are worth but only God sees the end, the diamond in us. This is why it’s important that I never succumb to limitations the world puts on me or i place on myself!

Quote me on this bro!

Judges 16 V19 “Then she lulled him to sleep on her knees…” v20 “…He did not know that the LORD had departed from him” – this hurts. He would have been bewildered, shocked…and for the first time afraid, he became like any other man.

My dad said – “when you accommodate sin, your vision gets blurry and you use your God given gift to help the Enemy”. Blind Samson was grinding corn for the philistines. How depressing is this – v25 “so they called for Samson from the prison and HE PERFORMED FOR THEM”. That hurts. He became a clown, an entertainer, a joke. :(

The difference between Samson and Joseph

Gen 39: 10 so it was, as she spoke to Joseph day by day, that he did not heed her, to lie with her or to be with her.

Judges 16:16 And it came to pass, when she pestered him daily with her words and pressed him, so that his soul was vexed to death, that he told her all his heart…

And that is the difference between Samson and Joseph. Joseph did not even listen or be around her. Unlike me, sometimes I enjoy flirting with sin. It’s not good. Joseph showed REAL character by not doing having sex avec Potiphar’s wife. Even though it’s what Hollywood would have encouraged. He didn’t even pray about it. He didn’t debate it. He just said NO to adultery. No one would have found out. No one would have known. He could have got away with it and lived a comfortable …yet slanderous life.

Judges 14:6 reads like the recognition of superpower, like when Spiderman realises he can spin webs.

And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat, though he had nothing in his hand. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. 

Such a classic example of how Love makes a man foolish. COME ON SAMSON, 3 times she tries to bind you. 3 times! But it’s the same way a girl strings you along and you keep on believing you can be together because you think you are truly, madly and deeply. But it’s a farce, a ruse, a ploy, in this case a death trap. I cannot blame him. She must have been gorgeous.