faithrunner

I'm intrigued by the person of Samson in the Bible . ( Judges 13-16 )  Mainly because he had everything a man wants to be and have--including God's blessing--and he squandered it all for his own glory. With March Madness and the NFL Draft on the horizon, I wonder how many Samsons will be handed an opportunity of a lifetime and we watch them end up under a pile of rubble they pull down upon themselves like Samson . We are observing the prayer life of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke as Legacy Church these days, and my thoughts drew me back to the prayer life of Samson. How does a man chosen by God and who has it all pray? I observed in my book, An Angel in the Flame: a tale of two saviors ,  Our storyteller records only two prayers of Samson: the first after he killed the thousand Philistines with the jawbone, the second just before his death...in both cases, Samson asked God to serve him, rather than the other way around. (87) Samon's first prayer was fill...

A staff member informed me the other day that a couple of ministers we knew had extra-marital affairs and were no longer serving in their churches. He wanted to know what I was doing to safeguard my marriage and my role as a spiritual leader . That conversation led me to reflect on what I have done to stay faithful to my best friend for over thirty-six years . (Most of what I wrote in my previous blog applies to this topic, too.) In my book, An Angel in the Flame: A Tale of Two Saviors , the story of Samson with an eye to Jesus, our true Savior,  I write: You can tell a man's character by two things: how he prays and how he manages his sex drive. How a man prays exposes his heart and to whom he bends his knee. How he manages his sexual urges exposes the depth of discipline in his life. Hypocrisy can mask both aspects of his life, and he can act out a persona many will accept as real. However, crisis and leisure are crucibles that reveal a person's true character. No Oscar...