The Gap and The Voice

No, I don't mean the clothing line (what happened to them anyway). I mean the gap a person experiences that causes a change or transformation. I've been thinking a lot about these gaps lately.

Recently our family has got into watching The Voice. While watching we heard the song Samson by Regina Spektor. The song struck me powerfully. You can hear The Voice recording here.

I downloaded the song (both The Voice version and Original) and found myself listening to it over and over. The song seems to be written from the perspective of Delilah and the romance she had with Samson in Judges 16.

The Bible tells us that Samson fell in love with Delilah. Delilah is bribed by the rulers of her country to find the secret to Samson's strength. She proceeds to search for his secret setting trap after trap for Samson. Each time he keeps his secret. Until verse 15 says the following:

¹⁵ Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’^c when you won’t confide in me? This is the third time^d you have made a fool of me and haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.^e” ¹⁶ With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it. 

¹⁷ So he told her everything.^f “No razor has ever been used on my head,” he said, “because I have been a Nazirite^g dedicated to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.” 

Listening to the song and thinking of the Bible account, I was struck by a number of thoughts. 

1. Samson's love for Delilah. Some might call him a fool, others blinded by love or lust. He wasn't exactly a great moral man! But I would say to those people that maybe they don't understand love. The same word here is used for Abraham's love for his one and only son Isaac. It's the same word used for the command to love God. Samson loved her.

2. The Bible doesn't tell us how Delilah feels for Samson, but the song suggests that she loves him deeply too. I hadn't thought about that before. Delilah was trapped - caught in the political power play of powerful men. I'm not excusing her actions, but I think we have a habit of denigrating people in the Bible by prescribing more to them than what the actual passage says. Delilah has been portrayed as evil, a bad woman, a prostitute, a manipulator and I've even heard her called a slut by some. But what if she was a poor woman, in love with a man who hid from her? The song gave me pause...that maybe we need to look at all people as God's children deserving his love and our compassion rather than evil reprobates. It made me wonder about Delilah, for she disappears from the Bible after this episode. She enters a gap that is never resolved. It bothered me. This woman, who for whatever reason betrayed a man who loved her, and disappears. What happened to her? We're left with speculation.

3. At the same time I thought of Samson. He gets taken into captivity. His eyes are gouged out and he is shackled and forced to manual labor. We don't know how long he does this for? It is his gap. During this time of blindness and labor, his hair grows back and during a period of his greatest humiliation, this humbled man calls on God for help.

4. It made me think of other gaps in the Bible - Moses gap of 40 years, Paul's gap of 11-14 years, Abraham's gap of 25 years, the gap in the wilderness for Israel, even the gap in Jesus life from childhood to adulthood. In each one, the gap brought a period of reflection, unlearning and/or learning and transformation. Yes for Jesus too - Hebrews 5:8 tells us that he learned obedience from his suffering. That was some of his gap.

5. It made me think further of our own growth as people and how essential the gap is for us. So often we preach the success, we talk about the success, we celebrate the transformation. But we forget the process...we forget the gap. The gap is where the change happens. The gap is where the work takes place. The gap, if it is essential and I believe it is, is where we need to go to find out who we are and who we are meant to be. 

We need to teach, preach and guide people in the gap and stop pushing them to the success. We need to create a place where people in the gap can find a place to breath and exist without pressure to change. We need to be a people of process, not a people of quick fixes.

So my thoughts drift back to Delilah and I wonder how many Delilah's drift into and out of our lives looking for a place to process, but find instead quick fixes, entrapment or scorn. I wonder about Samson, and how many Samson's drift into our lives blind and weak looking for someone to guide their hands to a place of purpose but instead find people laughing at them and humiliating them in their time of process. And I wonder, am I a Delilah or a Samson?

Shards

I recently spoke at our Men's Prayer Breakfast talking about Paul's reference to his "thorn in the flesh" from 2 Corinthians 12. The word for thorn in the Greek is skolops. It can be translated in multiple ways. It can be a thorn, something small with an irritating prick in your skin, or it could be large, like a tent stake that drives a hole through your heart. It most literal translation is "what is pointed".

There is much debate over what Paul's thorn is, but I don't like the word thorn as used. I think I prefer the word shards. Shards carries a far better meaning to me, Shards is such an applicable word. Shards of glass...it captures images of brokenness and pain, of danger. Shards of rock, that poke and prod, leaving you uncomfortable at least. Shards of broken ceramic that clearly say the plate is beyond repair. Shards of metal that are cast off by the metal worker, but so dangerous if left unattended.

John MacArthur argues that Paul's thorn is a broken relationship in his ministry. He feels it is the best reason for Paul's pain and anguish in this chapter as he refer to the thorn as a messenger of Satan sent to torment him.

I think we can all relate to this pain. Broken relationships are by far the most severe form of pain I know. The break in the relationship can be of any reason: death of someone close, a parting of ways whether by choice or not, a betrayal, or something in-between. The writers used the word thorn to keep to the true sense of the word, but I prefer shards. A broken relationship leaves your heart, soul and even your body wracked with pain as if filled with shards.

Shards are broken pieces with sharp edges that slide into you and leave you filled with pain. They cannot be easily removed for to take them out means cutting you again. And when you get one, there are often plenty more. If the removal is done poorly a single shard can also break into more shards causing more pain. I think this is what broken relationships feel like to so many people - not a stake or thorn in your flesh. But shards in your flesh!

God's answer to Paul is that his grace is sufficient. What isn't answered is how you experience and receive that grace. It's different for each person.

For all those suffering from a broken relationship, I know your pain. I know your shards. My prayer for you and for me is that we would together find the grace of God that is sufficient for our healing.