Beneath the Fog

Fog is a dangerous creation of a combination of atmospheric conditions. According to the Federal Highway Administration over 16,300 people sustain injuries as a result of traffic accidents that take place during foggy conditions each year. These accidents result in more than 600 deaths.

Fog is the enemy of clarity. The thicker the fog, the less the visibility. Fog can be so thick that visibility becomes almost zero. The practical advice, often given and many times ignored, is to avoid driving in heavy fog. Obviously, from the statistics related above, fog is a major problem on American highways.

The predominant use of the word fog is to describe atmospheric weather conditions, but it can be used to describe a state of mind. It is also applicable to life when life becomes confused, chaotic and dangerous. Any way it is used, fog is not our friend. It represents a threat to our well-being.

Fog is a threat to our well-being because of the reality beneath the fog.

Beneath the fog and obscured by the fog are realities of which we cannot see. On the highway it may be a car stalled, parked or moving at a much slower speed. A damaged roadway which we do not anticipate and cannot see may be a greater peril than other motorists. The reality beneath the fog is concrete. What we desperately need to see, we cannot see as a result of the fog.

Fog that grips the human mind and settles on the affairs and interactions of people in a society is no less a threat than that in the air. Just as motorists are blind to the reality beneath the fog, people in a society can be blind to the reality beneath the fog.

There is a story in the Book of Judges about the last individual that served as a judge during the period of the judges. His name was Samson. The story of Samson takes up four chapters in Judges, chapters 13-16. He was known for his extra-ordinary human strength and also for his association with a woman named Delilah. Samson fits into this blog for two reasons. First of all, he was a man in a fog of his own creation which I will disclose below. Secondly, he experienced the reality beneath the fog, albeit it was a painful, disastrous reality. There are several details of Samson's life that explain who he was and also how his life became a fog that blinded him to reality. What were you thinking? How could you be so naive? These are the natural questions that arise in the minds of the readers of Samson's story. As the story unfolds Samson fluctuates from careless and the reckless. He definitely appeared to be a man in a fog.

• Samson experienced a miracle birth with divine purpose. Zorah and Manoah were a childless couple from the tribe of the Danites. Angel of the Lord appeared to them and told them that she would have a son who would be a Nazarite to God from his birth. God would use him to deliverer Israel from the Philistines. The Nazarite vow required Samson to not drink wine or similar drink and not eat anything unclean. No razor would come upon his head. Judges 13:24 says that the Lord blessed him. "So the woman bore a son and called his name Samson; and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him."

• Despite Samson's unique birth with divine purpose and promise, his life was marked by impulsive, selfish choices from the start. When his life is examined and evaluated as a whole, Samson can be best described as an egotistical narcissist. The fulfillment of any and every desire, moral or immoral, in alignment with God's purpose or out of alignment, was paramount. Samson refused to take no for an answer.

• Exhibit number one of Samson's egotistical narcissisms is seen in Judges 14:3, 4.

"So he went up and told his father and mother, saying, 'I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines; now therefore, get her for me as a wife.' Then his father and mother said to him, 'Is there no woman among the daughters of your brethren, or among all my people, that you must go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?' And Samson said to his father, 'Get her from me, for she pleases me well.'"

Samson showed little regard for honoring God's purpose for his own life and even

less for honoring God's purpose for His people. Just as the Nazarite vow was

intended to separate Samson for God's purposes, God's requirement that Israel not

marry people of other idolatrous nations was to set them apart as a nation to fulfill

His purposes.

What Samson desired he intended to have. What pleased him seemed to be the

sole criteria for his choices.

• Exhibit number two in Samson's egotistical narcissisms in his propensity to try to outwit others through the use of riddles. After he slew a lion through his incredible strength, he comprised a riddle about the lion he had slain. Solving the riddle became a contest between Samson and his companions. The companions used the wife he had chosen from the Philistines to trick Samson into telling her the answer to the riddle. She then passed the answer on to his companions enabling them to win the contest. Samson then killed thirty Philistine men of Ashkelon to provide the reward to his companions for solving the riddle. Samson's efforts to show case his cleverness turned into an act of revenge.

• The next exhibit in Samson's egotistical narcissisms is the way he used his physical strength. His strength was a gift from God intended to be used for God's purpose. Rather than use his strength for God's purposes, Samson used it to boost his ego and when necessary to exact revenge. A part of the Nazarite vow was for no razor to come upon his head. His strength was directly connected to this part of the vow. After he married Delilah, the Philistine's enlisted her to discover the secret to his strength. In a drawn-out game of deception, Delilah finally tricked Samson into telling her the secret to his incredible strength.

"And it came to pass, when she pestered him daily with her words and pressed him, so that his soul was vexed to death, that he told her all his heart, and said to her, 'No razor has ever come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If I am shaven, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man'" (Judges 16:16,17).

It was after Samson's tragic decision to marry Delilah and then allow himself to be manipulated by her to disclose the secret to his strength, that he discovered the reality beneath the fog.

The reality beneath the fog is recorded in Judges 16:20. "And she said, 'The Philistines are upon you, Samson!' So he awoke from his sleep, and said, 'I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free!' But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him."

The stark, cruel reality that Samson faced was "...the Lord had departed from him." "Then the Philistines took him and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza. They bound him with bronze fetters, and he became a grinder in the prison" (Judges 16:21). What a sad, tragic way for Samson to experience the reality beneath the fog!

Samson life ended sometime later after his hair grew and his physical strength returned. The Philistines gathered to offer a sacrifice to Dagon their god. They brought Samson out to exhibit him in his blind condition and to use him as a source of entertainment. In one final act of revenge, Samson managed to station his body between two pillars. He used his strength to destroy the pillars and bring the building down on the crowd. All the people were killed enabling Samson to kill more people in his death than he did during his life.

What a tragic, depressing story of failure and unfulfilled purpose! It is the story of the reality beneath the fog.

Can this story be rewritten in our day? Is it possible for us to be blinded by a fog of our own making? How much clarity do we have as we are navigating our way in 2024? Are we experiencing a fog of our own making not that different from what Solomon experienced? When we discover the reality beneath the fog, what will that reality be?

I believe in many ways we are experiencing a fog created by political ideologies and agendas, by Supreme Court rulings that are more influenced by political leanings than constitutional interpretation or judicial fairness, by competing cable news networks that value ratings more than accuracy or truth and by a church that may be in danger of placing Christian Nationalism above the truth of the gospel and the advancement of God's kingdom. The lack of commitment to moral and ethical truths and utter lack of reverence and value for human life make us appear to be inhuman. I understand that these statements may sounded bias or political, but my motivation is not to be bias or political. I am motivated by concern over what I see and hear in a world that seems to be reeling from one crisis to another. The rhetoric is loud and long, the confusion is evident, and the solutions seem to be elusive or non-existent.

What reality exist beneath the fog? This is the pressing and all-important question? I do not know the answer, but I have a great concern that we may awakening one day and find ourselves in a similar place that Samson found himself.

I believe the Bible that records the story of Samson is the best place for us to find clarity in the midst of the fog. We will not find clarity in the fog by chicken-scratching, hen-pecking and cherry-picking scripture. We will find clarity when we seriously study the Bible and make the truth of the Bible, God's word to us and for us, the authority for truth and practice.

The fog of human life will dissipate through the clarity of God's word and only through biblical clarity. Oh God, let it be!