Soveriegn over Crushes

Before this morning, I had never thought about God being in control of my feelings in elementary, high school, and college so that I would like a cute girl I saw walking by or I had talked to in the hall. In fact, I thought that God could care less for who I liked (other than my future wife). As I reflected on Samson's many issues with ladies (Delilah, a prostitute, and a Philistine) I began to see what God was doing in my heart and life through inclining my hear to a specific girl as I was growing up. In Judges 14, Samson falls in love with a girl. 1   Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. 2 Then he came up and told his father and mother, "I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah. Now get her for me as my wife." 3 But his father and mother said to him, "Is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?" But Samson said to his father, "Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes." 4   His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines ruled over Israel. Samson told his parents that this Philistine girl was "right in his eyes." In other words, she looked beautiful to him (seeing as he did not know her from conversation, but only by sight). God had quickened Samson's heart so that he would fall in love with this girl because "[God] was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines" (v. 4). The author adds a note about the situation to emphasize the fact that this was a strange union indeed by reminding us that the Philistines ruled over Israel. That is, this slave boy wanted to marry an aristocrat. You would think that Samson would not want to marry this woman after she breaks confidence with him by telling her people the answer to his wedding riddle. No, he becomes even more enraged and he beat thirty men from Ashkelon and stripped them naked. God kept Samson from marrying this pagan girl and used this crush as a means to free his people from tyranny. This little crush turns out to be the neon sign pointing out Samson as the main antagonist against the Philistines. Thus, they begin their search to destroy him. Samson's flirting with evil does not end because he then sleeps with a prostitute and falls in love with Delilah. To be discussed tomorrow.