What They Did Not Know

His parents just stand there helplessly, pleading with their son to please, please reconsider.  To please make a better, wiser, more sensible choice.  His father prays silent, fervent prayers, asking God to give him just the right words to say that would change their son’s mind.  His mother tries desperately to hold back the tears, begging God to please let this not be true.  How did they get to this point?  Where had everything gone so terribly wrong?

It hadn’t always been like this.  They remember, as if were yesterday, the years and years that they had waited and prayed and longed for a child.  How they had struggled to remain brave and hopeful as the families all around them seemed to be flourishing and growing, and their own womb remained empty.

And then the day, that wonderful day, the happiest day of their life, when God answered their prayers and gave them a beautiful, perfect baby boy.  Their son.  Oh, how they rejoiced!  And their lips praised, again and again, the One who works wonders.  And their hearts overflowed with thanksgiving for His goodness and His mercy and for giving them this precious, priceless gift. 

They committed their son fully, completely, wholeheartedly to God.  They knelt down before the Lord, falling on their faces to the ground, and pleaded with God to give them wisdom to raise their child.  To teach them what to do.  To show them the kind of life God wanted their son to have.  To use them, despite their inexperience and inadequacies, to prepare this boy for the mission, the grand purpose for which God had created him.  

Now that God had so generously answered their prayers for a child, they took their parenting role very seriously, and they knew that they would need God’s help every step of the way.  They obeyed God completely.  They observed every command. They raised their son to be strong and courageous.  They taught him God’s word at every opportunity.  They modeled for him what it means to live a life with the utmost respect and reverence for God’s holiness.  

And now?  Now their son is grown, independent, old enough to make his own decisions.  And his parents are deeply grieved, not only at the foolish choices that he is making, but at the dangerous direction his life is taking.  At the angry young man he is becoming.  His life is full of fighting, violence, destruction, and revenge.  He is reckless and impulsive.  He is promiscuous and – they can barely bear the deep shame of it – he actually sleeps with prostitutes!  Could this really be the same person that they had dedicated to God all those years ago?  It hardly seems possible.

He comes to his parents one day and says, Dad. Mom. Guess what?  I have found the girl I want to marry.  She is the one I want to spend the rest of my life with.  Please be happy for me!  They are shocked.  And more than that, they are completely devastated.  What?  This one? A young woman who does not know and love God?  A woman who will only lead their beloved son further astray?  Further away from them and their faith and everything they believe? Further away from the plans and purposes that God has called him to?

Never have they felt so helpless.  They try to talk him out of it, begging him to reconsider. Surely there is another young woman better suited to you?  Is there really not one nice girl who is a believer that you might like?  Why this one? Why do you have to marry someone whose family and background and lifestyle and beliefs go against everything we have taught you to be right and true?  Someone who truly hates us?

But there is no dissuading their son.  He insists.  This is the one.  She is the right one for me.

In their heartache, in their desperate prayers that seem to go unanswered, his father and mother could not see what the Lord was doing.  They do not know that even this, even the foolish and impulsive choices that their son is making, is from the Lord.  They have no idea that God is planning, all along, to use their son and his life for a much greater purpose than they possibly could imagine.  Even when it seems as if they have failed, as if everything has been in vain, they trust God to the very end.  Like other faithful ones throughout history, his parents eventually “die in faith, not having received the promise.”  (Hebrews 11:13)  

Their death, however, is not the end of the story. Many years later, at just the right time, the Spirit of the Lord begins to stir upon their son, allowing him to accomplish amazing things.  He cries out to the Lord, giving Him glory for the victories in his life, thanking Him for giving him strength, calling himself God’s servant.  It’s as if all those early, formative years of his parents’ godly influence and teaching and training is finally taking root, sinking deep within his heart, and bearing the sweet fruit that they had so desperately desired.

Unfortunately, though, even though his heart is repentant and filled with new life, there is no escaping the consequences of his violence and worldly passions and promiscuity and foolish decisions.  The damage has already been done.  It all finally catches up to him, and he finds himself in a dark prison, maimed with permanent, disfiguring scars, humiliated, thoroughly disgraced.  Completely alone.  His parents' worst nightmare . . . happened.

This is the true story of Samson (found in Judges 13-16), but it is also the story of all parents throughout history who have watched their grown child struggle.  Who have stood by, helplessly, as their child follows a path of self-destruction, realizing that no matter how hard they try, there is absolutely nothing they can do to rescue their child from anger, addictions, violence, promiscuity, toxic relationships, mental illness, or incarceration.  They, like Samson’s parents, wonder how they got to this point and where everything went so terribly wrong.

Thankfully, though, this was not the end of Samson’s story.  On what is to be the last day of his life, Samson calls out to the Lord, Please remember me!  Please strengthen me!  And the Lord, in His sovereignty, in His grace and tender mercy, hears the cries of this broken man.  He answers his prayers.  He gives Samson the supernatural strength that he is asking for.  And in the last moments of his life, Samson, the most unlikeliest of heroes, rescues an entire nation!

Samson’s mother and father, like so many couples who lived before them and would live after them, did not know how, or even if, God was going to answer their prayers for a child. 

And when that child finally became a part of their family, they did not know, could not possibly predict, the extraordinary plans that God had for that child’s life.  They did not know that even from the womb, God already had His hand on their beloved child’s life, and that He was already creating him for a purpose.  A beautiful plan that could not be thwarted.  They did not know that He wasn't just answering the prayers of hopeful parents . . . He was answering the prayers of an entire nation.

Maybe they knew, but they could not possibly understand the significance of it, that out of all the people in the world, God chose them to be that child’s parents – the very ones who would help prepare him for those amazing plans.  And that in the process, when the results of all their best parenting was not at all what they expected, their faith would be stretched and tested and ultimately strengthened.  They did not know that God wasn’t asking them to raise a godly son; He was asking them to be godly parents.  To continue believing, hope against hope, that God would accomplish what He had promised to do.

                                               

And later, when it all seemed hopeless and completely impossible, and when they stood there helplessly, unable to prevent their son from his path of self-destruction, they did not know how God was going to rescue him.  How God was going to reach into the darkest, most desperate situation, and somehow, miraculously, use it for His glory.  They did not know that even when their fervent prayers for their wayward son seemed to go unanswered, God was at work in the hidden places, answering those prayers in ways that they might never live to see.

The son did not know.  His parents did not know.  The entire nation did not know.  But all along, God knew.  He knew what He was doing.  He was fulfilling His plan.  Keeping His promises.  He knew what no one else did . . . that no person is too flawed, no life too broken, no situation too hopeless, that He cannot redeem and restore.  That there is not one person who is beyond the powerful plans that God has in store.  God knew that He could use this man and his life for a much greater purpose than anyone ever could have imagined.

As they watched their son struggle through life, there was a lot of things his parents did not know.  But they were learning.  They were learning what it means to believe.  And they were learning that with God, anything is possible.

His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, 

for He was seeking an opportunity [to rescue an entire nation].

Judges 14:4