The Lord Was At Work

His father and mother objected. “Isn’t there even one woman in our tribe or among all the Israelites you could marry?” they asked. “Why must you go to the pagan Philistines to find a wife?” But Samson told his father, “Get her for me! She looks good to me.” His father and mother didn’t realize the LORD was at work in this, creating an opportunity to work against the Philistines, who ruled over Israel at that time. Judges 14:3-4

AFTER YEARS OF INFERTILITY, Manoah and his wife lived in anticipation of all that their son, Samson, would be and do. They taught him God’s law and watched the Spirit of the Lord stir in him as he grew up. But then one day a Philistine girl from Timnah caught Samson’s eye, and he just had to have her. All their years of teaching, training, praying, and sacrificing seemed to have little power to restrain him. Samson’s parents must have been devastated. But the writer of Judges reveals to us a gap in their knowledge that could have made all the difference about their sense of the situation. “His father and mother didn’t realize the LORD was at work in this” (verse 4). How could the Lord be at work through Samson’s desire to do exactly what the law of God forbade —for an Israelite to marry someone who worshiped other gods?

Certainly they weren’t wrong to object to Samson’s demands. And certainly Samson’s desires were not virtuous. But Yahweh is not bound by a parent’s ability to grasp the big picture or limited by a child’s foolishness. The Lord is able to use even our sinfulness and stupidity to bring about his purposes. This should offer hope to us as parents when our children make unwise decisions and when we can’t see God at work in the midst of their sinful choices. Just because we can’t understand these choices doesn’t mean the Lord is not creating an opportunity to work in our child’s life.

Lord, when we consider our own sinful inadequacies, even as we have sought to faithfully teach, pray for, discipline, and love ________, we find comfort in the reminder that we cannot always expect to see the full picture of what you’re doing. We praise you for being sovereign over our lives and over ________’s life —so sovereign that you can cause even ________’s foolish choices to work together for her good. Today we choose to trust that you are working in a way we can’t yet see.