Judges 16:21 “But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house.”

Judges 16:22 “Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven.”

These two verses taken from the book of Judges deal with the demise of a guy called “Samson”, who is a one of a kind type character in the Bible.

He’s one of my favourite characters in the Bible!

Samson was a literal one man army who waged war with the Philistines, an enemy nation who was occupying Israel at that time.

Samson is well known for his long hair and immense strength… and yet for all his mighty exploits, he’s best remembered for his weakness in being humiliated in betrayal by a woman called Delilah, who cut his hair off causing him to lose all his strength.

Of course, we read now and know there was no magical power in his hair, but he did have a special vow on his life from birth, the Nazarite vow… which was a vow of separation to God ordained in Old Testament law that people would voluntarily take to dedicate themselves to the Lord for a time.

One part of the three parts of the vow was not cutting your hair during the time period of the vow… only when your vow of separation ended was it cut… and one day… his hair was cut, symbolizing the end of his separation to God… and coincided with the loss of God’s power in his life too.

… and we would do well to take note of that. Because if you’re a worldly Christian and your life is not separated from the things of world and sin, and separated unto God… you will have no power in your Christian life.

When Samson is depicted these days, generally he is portrayed as a big muscular “Tarzan” type guy… but in reality he was just an ordinary guy who through the power of God was capable of extraordinary things.

… A bit like any Christian… if you believe in Christ you are capable of a lot more than you may ever realize!

Sadly, Samson’s life serves as a true “if only” story in the Bible, because though he had such potential, yet he wasted it as he ended up captured, defeated, blinded, and humiliated by the Philistines.

And so I’ve quoted two verses where Samson has just had his hair cut off by Delilah, and he’s been captured… and it’s a sad story… but even in this sad story… we see the re-emergence of hope in the very next verse after the darkest moment in his life.

Thank God Samson’s story doesn’t end in what seemed to be his ultimate and terminal and irretrievable failure!

Samson’s story doesn’t end at his eyes being put out, making him blinded for the rest of his life… it doesn’t end with him in chains and humiliation.

Read verse 22… and we see a beautiful detail in this story… a small detail that even the Philistines didn’t notice! Because his hair began to grow again.

Regrowth as a Christian can have very humble and small beginnings. It didn’t seem like much when a little bit of hair started showing all over his head again.

This detail… with Samson’s hair regrowing…  gives hope to any Christian who has ever stuffed up, failed, who can’t see light anywhere anymore and is just grinding hopelessly away at life. Is life a grind? Samson’s was… a horrible grind.

How many of us have imprisoned ourselves and checkmated ourselves with our own folly, with our own sin, with our own stupidity as Samson did! How many of us have despised God’s grace year after year and now we have seemingly gone too far and beyond God’s redeeming power!

It would be nice to think that Christians never mess up, but we all do, and some make very bad mistakes in their life which are very costly, like Samson did. He’d made a lot of mistakes and God had got him out of some big messes… but this one was the mother of all mistakes… he’d pushed God too far…

Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever felt like you’ve pushed God too far and God’s done with you? Well Samson was in that situation. But there was a silver lining beyond his fetters of brass. God wasn’t done with him either. At the end of all our lives, truly the only glory we have will be the glory that belongs to God.

So Samon’s hair of his head began to regrow… and that symbolizes growing again… which this blog is about. Grow again… then going again! He certainly did that. He’s just verses away from the greatest moment of his life even in his death.

Samson would never get his eyes back… and sin can leave some stuff that we can’t change… but as a Christian we can grow again. You can still make something of your life. God can still use you. And we are never beyond God’s redeeming power, because that would limit his ability to redeem… limitations that don’t exist through the cross of Christ.

So I just want to encourage you with this thought from these verses!

A few verses later, Samson will win his most famous victory at the end of his life… so you just don’t know what God can yet do with your life… maybe your greatest moment is still ahead, even while you think all is lost right now.

If you’ve stuffed up for what feels like the final time, if you’re in a black hole, if you’re at ground zero in your spiritual life and walk with God… Grow again! And go again! He is faithful that promised!

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