{"id":1418,"date":"2026-09-02T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/igrejapequena.com.br\/blog\/?p=1418"},"modified":"2026-09-02T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T09:00:00","slug":"i-samson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/igrejapequena.com.br\/blog\/i-samson\/","title":{"rendered":"I, Samson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judges 13:1-16:31<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is not a triumphalist article.<\/p>\n

It is deeply human, existential, harsh, heavy… realistic.<\/p>\n

If you enjoy happy endings, today, this is not your place.<\/p>\n

We all know the story of Samson. It is as necessary as that of Joseph in Egypt.<\/p>\n

But let’s forget all the introductory material.<\/p>\n

Let’s focus on his last day of life. Let our imagination soar a bit. Without feeling the passage, it’s just information.<\/p>\n

After<\/h2>\n

The last memory he had was well imprinted.<\/p>\n

Not that he had any retinas left on which to imprint anything. He, one of the greatest judges of Israel, had been brutally blinded by his enemies.<\/p>\n

He could still hear the shouts of joy from the Philistines when it happened. He remembered how, helpless, he was dragged by four not very strong men. His forehead was tied to the trunk. And the executioner brutally gouged out his eyes with a red-hot iron.<\/p>\n

And then came the silence.<\/p>\n

Not because the evening crowd wasn’t braying victoriously after years of being defeated by Samson. But because the pain he felt was so intense that no other sense could function properly.<\/p>\n

The years of victories passed through his mind. The battles won. Being a person of courage and respect among his people. The feeling of his Creator’s presence in his body in a way completely different from any other human. The care his parents gave him. The affections he was exposed to. The expectations since before the womb.<\/p>\n

All was lost.<\/p>\n

Nothing made sense anymore.<\/p>\n

He thought: What am I grinding? Wheat for the great? Barley for the poor? And what difference would it make?<\/p>\n

They put him to do the work of a beast of burden: grinding, crushing, pulverizing.<\/p>\n

From dawn to dusk, the ever-stronger Samson did only one thing: turn and turn. Push and push. Grind and grind.<\/p>\n

He who once instilled fear and dread in any Philistine warrior was now a laughingstock for the children. They threw stones at him. Laughed at him. Spat in his face.<\/p>\n

The important thing was that the Philistine people, from the tenderest to the hardest, knew that the great judge of Israel had been defeated.<\/p>\n

What did it matter if it was barley for the poor or wheat for the rich!?<\/p>\n

The situation would repeat itself in the same way.<\/p>\n

Day after day. Week after week. Memory after memory.<\/p>\n

The stone turned.<\/p>\n

The dust rose.<\/p>\n

The body obeyed.<\/p>\n

Push. Breathe. Turn.<\/p>\n

Push. Breathe. Turn.<\/p>\n

And as the stone returned to the same place, Samson also returned.<\/p>\n

Returned to the woman of Timnah, to that first Philistine woman his eyes chose before his spirit could say no. Returned to the riddle, the feast, the wrath, the foxes setting the fields ablaze. Returned to the gates of Gaza carried on his shoulders as if no one could stop him.<\/p>\n

Returned to the dead lion’s body and the honey taken from within it. To what he touched, though he should not have touched. To what he ate, though his consecration demanded separation.<\/p>\n

Returned to vengeance. Always to vengeance.<\/p>\n

One blow demanded another. One humiliation demanded a response. One fallen enemy was never enough.<\/p>\n

And he returned to her…<\/p>\n

Returned to Delilah. To her insistence. To his vanity. To his certainty that he could play with danger once more. And again. And again.<\/p>\n

Until one day, there was no strength left to play.<\/p>\n

The worst part was that he knew…<\/p>\n

And what he knew was heavier than the stone he turned day after day. For he did not carry it on the outside, but on the inside.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t Delilah.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t the Philistines.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t his parents.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t his first wife.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t his people.<\/p>\n

They had participated. They had hurt, deceived, pressured, betrayed. But none of them had put Samson in that prison.<\/p>\n

He knew where it all began.<\/p>\n

Not the day Delilah cut his hair.<\/p>\n

Not the day the Philistines captured him.<\/p>\n

Not the day they gouged out his eyes.<\/p>\n

It began long before \u2014 each time he confused strength with invulnerability; each time he confused desire with right; each time he used God’s calling as if it were his own possession.<\/p>\n

Samson had not fallen all at once.<\/p>\n

He had descended step by step, calling each step a choice.<\/p>\n

Now, blind, he turned the stone.<\/p>\n

And the stone did not argue with him.<\/p>\n

Did not seduce him.<\/p>\n

Did not betray him.<\/p>\n

Did not flee.<\/p>\n

It just returned to the same place.<\/p>\n

There comes a moment when life ceases to be what we can still do and begins to be also what we can no longer undo.<\/p>\n

Samson must have known that moment when he opened his eyes and saw nothing.<\/p>\n

There was no more youth, strength, freedom. There was no way to go back to Timnah, erase Gaza, take back spoken words, undo choices, put eyes back in their sockets. There was only the sound of chains and the mill turning. One turn. Another turn. Another.<\/p>\n

I have thought that some forms of repentance begin exactly there: when we finally understand that God can forgive us without restoring the life we’ve squandered.<\/p>\n

What Did I Do with What I Received?<\/h2>\n

It is possible to blame Delilah for many things. But Delilah arrived late in the story.<\/p>\n

Before her, there was already a man accustomed to desiring and taking, advancing and then dealing with the consequences. A man set apart from the womb, visited by the Spirit, extraordinarily gifted \u2014 and incapable of governing himself.<\/p>\n

That is the part that frightens me.<\/p>\n

Because I have received much<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

And I know no other honest way to say this: I have squandered much<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

There comes a moment when explaining childhood, wounds, the people who betrayed us and those who abandoned us begins to seem like a desperate attempt to find someone to share with us a guilt that is ours.<\/p>\n

David could weep, but the child died. Moses could view the land, but did not enter it. Peter went out into the night and wept bitterly. There are things that God’s forgiveness heals before eternity without erasing from history.<\/p>\n

The Mill<\/h2>\n

Perhaps that is why I am so troubled by a certain Christianity incapable of standing before ruin.<\/p>\n

Everything must end well. God will restore. God will return. You will receive seven times more.<\/p>\n

Perhaps.<\/p>\n

But Samson did not get his eyes back.<\/p>\n

There are losses that are not attacks of the Devil. They are consequences. There are doors that God may not reopen. There are years that no prayer will recover. And to call this a lack of faith would be merely to add falsehood to sin.<\/p>\n

The mill keeps turning.<\/p>\n

And perhaps one of the loneliest experiences of existence is realizing that the one pushing that stone is ourselves.<\/p>\n

“Remember Me”<\/h2>\n

Then there remains a prayer.<\/p>\n

Not: “Give me everything back.”<\/p>\n

Not: “Make it like it was before.”<\/p>\n

Samson already knew there was no more “before.”<\/p>\n

So there remains a small phrase. Brief. Harsh. Direct:<\/p>\n

“Sovereign Lord, remember me.”<\/strong> (Judges 16:28)<\/p>\n

Perhaps this is the possible prayer when we have no more arguments.<\/p>\n

I have sinned.<\/p>\n

I have squandered.<\/p>\n

I have hurt.<\/p>\n

I have not been faithful to what I received.<\/p>\n

And now?<\/p>\n

I don’t know.<\/p>\n

That may be the truest answer I can offer.<\/p>\n

I don’t know what God will still do with the remnants of my story. I don’t know what will be returned and what will remain lost. I don’t know if there is again a pulpit, a home, a hug, a child, a friend, or just some columns before me.<\/p>\n

I only know that yesterday no longer exists.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow has not yet been given to me.<\/p>\n

And, by some mercy I cannot explain, today still exists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judges 13:1-16:31 This is not a triumphalist article. It is deeply human, existential, harsh, heavy… realistic. If you enjoy happy endings, today, this is not your place. We all know the story of Samson. It is as necessary as that of Joseph in Egypt. But let’s forget all the introductory material. Let’s focus on his … Continue lendo I, Samson<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"lang":"en","translations":{"en":{"id":1418,"slug":"i-samson"},"pt":{"id":1416,"slug":"eu-sansao"},"es":{"id":1417,"slug":"yo-sanson"}},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/mlr63ku2e7ti.i.optimole.com\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/igrejapequena.com.br\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/featured-en.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4RFIP-mS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/igrejapequena.com.br\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/igrejapequena.com.br\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/igrejapequena.com.br\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/igrejapequena.com.br\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/igrejapequena.com.br\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/igrejapequena.com.br\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1421,"href":"https:\/\/igrejapequena.com.br\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1418\/revisions\/1421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/igrejapequena.com.br\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/igrejapequena.com.br\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/igrejapequena.com.br\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/igrejapequena.com.br\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}