The Final Act

Transcript

My friend, so good to be with you again. This is By God's Call — day 76, The Final Act.

"And Samson said, 'Let me die with the Philistines.' Then he bowed with all his strength, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life." Judges 16:30.

I need to tell you how Samson arrived at this moment, because without that, this verse loses half its weight.

Samson was set apart for God before he was even born. A Nazirite from his mother's womb, chosen, marked, full of promise. And yes, he had moments of extraordinary strength that came from the Spirit of the LORD. But he also spent much of his life chasing his own appetites — the wrong women, personal vendettas, playing with the edge of his own consecration until, quite literally, he lost everything. Betrayed by Delilah, his hair cut while he slept, captured by the Philistines, his eyes gouged out, he ended up living in chains, grinding grain like an animal, put on display as a war trophy at a festival honoring the god Dagon.

That is the man who arrives at that temple on that day. Blind. Humiliated. Publicly mocked. At the very bottom of a hole his own story had dug.

And it is there, in that place of total defeat, that something happens I need you not to rush past: Samson prays. He asks God, one last time, to give him back his strength. This is not a triumphant victory prayer — it is the prayer of a broken man, at the end of the road, asking that what little remains would be enough to fulfill a purpose. And God answers.

He pushes against the central pillars of the temple with all the strength that was left in him. And the building collapses on the Philistine leaders and the entire crowd gathered there. The text says something that is almost startling in its honesty: those he killed in his death were more than all those he had killed during his entire life.

Think carefully about that. Samson's life, seen from the outside, could be summed up as wasted. Extraordinary potential, misused, repeatedly, for decades. And yet — even so — God found a way to use the final moment of that life to accomplish something of His larger purpose of delivering Israel from the Philistines. Not because Samson finally deserved it. But because God's grace does not require a flawless life in order to produce an ending that serves His plan.

I am not telling you this to minimize the gravity of Samson's failures, or to turn his tragedy into a tidy, feel-good story. The Bible does not do that, and neither will I. But there is something deeply real here for anyone — like me, and maybe like you — who looks back and sees years they feel were wasted. Maybe you carry regrets like that — choices that cost you dearly, time that will not come back, potential you feel you threw away.

Samson's story says: it is not too late. God can take what remains — even if it is little, even if it comes after years of drifting — and use it for a real purpose. He does not need a spotless life to act. He needs a heart that, even late, still cries out to Him.

So today, if you carry years you feel you wasted, pray. Ask God to use exactly what remains of your strength, your time, your life — the way He used what remained of Samson's.

I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.