“I don’t know how or under what circumstances the four of you found each other, but your callous indifference and utter disregard for everything that is good and decent has rocked the very foundation upon which our society is built.” 

--Judge from Seinfeld episode

“A lot of people don’t understand that Seinfeld is a dark show.”

--Larry David, writer of Seinfeld

Apathy lurks in the shadows. 

Judges 13:1

Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, so the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.

Judges 13:5

"You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”

Judges 13:24-25

The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson. He grew and the Lord blessed him, and the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him while he was in Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

Judges 14:2

When he returned, he said to his father and mother, “I have seen a Philistine woman in Timnah; now get her for me as my wife.”

Judges 14:14

He replied,

“Out of the eater, something to eat;

    out of the strong, something sweet.”

For three days they could not give the answer.

Judges 15:11

Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?”

He answered, “I merely did to them what they did to me.”

Judges 16:4

Some time later, he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah.

Judges 16:28

Then Samson prayed to the Lord, “Sovereign Lord, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.”

Judges 16:30

Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived.

He didn’t deliver an apathetic Israelite society from the Philistines. To be blunt, he was more interested in having sex with their women. 

The question was…Who is the hero in this story?

• Choose to spend time with passionate, godly people.
• Take silence and Sabbath more seriously.
• Fast from Amazon.
• Finish what you start.

God invites us…

…to weave our little stories into this grand, forward-moving narrative.