Having a Bad Hair Day

by Sandra Perry
Published September 21, 2004

Samson was not your average guy. He killed a lion with his bare hands. He slew 1,000 men with a donkey’s jawbone. Samson made the Terminator look like a girlie-man.

He was a Nazirite, chosen at birth by God to deliver his people from the Philistines. Samson was commanded to abstain from alcohol and anything remotely associated with a grapevine, including seeds and skins. Oh yeah, there was also the hair thing. A Nazirite was forbidden to cut his hair. It was the outward symbol of the inward vow.

However, for all Samson’s strength, he had one big weakness, the fairer sex. For all his successes in battle, Samson was not very lucky, or smart for that matter, in love. His first marriage ended disastrously with his bride and her father meeting a fiery death at the hands of Philistines bent on revenge. He also frequented prostitutes and thwarted a Philistine ambush by sneaking out of one young lady’s window in the middle of the night. Then there was Delilah.

Delilah herself was not exactly an honorable woman. That’s probably why she didn’t seem to flinch when the Philistine leaders offered her an obscene amount of money to find out what Samson’s weakness was. Delilah was in a win-win situation. She had the devotion of the strongest, most powerful man in the city or, if she succeeded in her plans, she would have more money than she’d ever dreamed existed.

Now you’d think that Samson would have gotten just a tad bit suspicious. Delilah would ask his secret. He’d make up some lie. The Philistines would break in while he was sleeping and try that very thing. Not a big mental stretch really. Most likely, Samson was having a little fun at their expense.

So, what finally made Samson tell Delilah the truth? Probably the oldest trick in the female arsenal, good old fashioned nagging. She asked, and she asked, and she whined and she asked again. Even the strongest man’s endurance has its limits. Finally, exhausted and desperately seeking silence, Samson tells Delilah the truth and the rest is history.

Samson is overtaken, shaven, beaten, his eyes gouged out and lead away in shame by the Philistines, but a funny thing happened on the way to an unhappy ending. In Judges 16.22, the Bible states that, “but the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.” Funny thing about hair, no matter how short you get it, it always comes back. It’s the basic truth that has sustained me through more than one bad haircut, and it’s the bright spot in our story. Sure, Samson goofed. Samson failed in his vow to God, but instead of disowning him, the sign of the promise between Samson and God returns.

In II Corinthians 4:8-9, Paul tells it this way, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Just like Samson, we sometimes fail to honor our vows before God. We stumble and fall. We are humiliated and defeated, but just like Samson’s baldness, that condition doesn’t have to last forever.

Samson, in the end, was victorious over his captors. We too can be victorious over the one who would humiliate us and sap our strength. Don’t worry about defeat. In God’s sight, it’s no worse than a bad hair day.

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