the wrong picture

The Word for today:
Judges 14, 15

The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he told neither his father nor his mother what he had done.  (Judges 14:6)

Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power. He went down to Ashkelon, struck down thirty of their men, stripped them of their belongings and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle. Burning with anger, he went up to his father's house.  (Judges 14:19)

As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting.  The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power.  The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands.  (Judges 15:14)

We often have a cartoon concept of biblical characters. To see what I mean, close your eyes while I count to five. Then, as I count, I want you to conjure up a mental image of Samson.

Ready? One…two…three…four…five.

Almost everyone’s mental picture of Samson will share two traits: big muscles and long hair. The long hair, we know, he usually had. But whether or not he was muscular is impossible to say.

We assume he had muscles because he had great strength. That is the deduction of the natural mind, but Samson's strength was not in his muscles or his hair. He was only strong when the Spirit of the LORD moved him. He is often depicted as a big bruiser, but it is more likely that he was not.

Remember that God had already gone to great lengths to choose Gideon—the weakest man of Israel’s weakest clan—to lead Israel. Then, for emphasis, he had culled the army of Gideon from 32,000 to 300. He did this so that Israel would know that it was God, not Gideon, who saved them.

The natural mind always equates power with size. In 1 Samuel, the people choose Saul to be their King. Saul was a head taller than anyone else in Israel; he looked the part.

He fulfilled the popular perception of a king, but he was not God’s choice. Instead, God would choose a lad named David, the youngest and least likely in his family.

In the Bible and in our real-time lives, we must remember to see people through the supernatural eyes of God, or we will get the wrong picture -- and miss the entire point.

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