Dear Father,

Today, I pondered the story of Samson. When his hair was shaved and he was tied up by the Philistines. The Scripture says, “Delilah said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the LORD was departed from him.”

His words revealed the confidence he had in his ability. If shaking himself was what he had always done to obtain victory, then shaking himself was what he believed he needed to do again. This, I believe, is the subtlety of strength: when the confidence of a man rises in unhealthy proportion to the mastery of his abilities, causing him to believe that his strengths are strong enough to stand even in the absence of discipline and structure, often upholding the mindset that continual victory is sustained by his past record of victory.

Apostle Iren advised that we must be people of discipline, even in areas where we are not struggling. This stands out to me because it is easy to think that discipline belongs to areas of weakness, and that with matters of strength, I would simply shake myself. But the very best are not still standing on the strength of their abilities, but on their commitment to the structures that have sustained them.

Samson became so accustomed to demonstrating strength that he was careless with the structure You had laid down for his preseveration. And today, I ponder the structures I should uphold but do not, for the sake of mastery in my abilities.

Translations;
Slide 1: English
Slide 2: French
Slide 3: Bengali
Slide 4: Hindi
Slide 5: Urdu

#LettertoGod
#structures
#discipline
#selfsufficiency
#strength