Did he waste his life?

I read the words in the newspaper, disbelieving. He was gone, leaving a wife and a couple of sons at home.

He left undone too many things that should have been.

They said it was his heart. But I wonder if it was his soul that went first.

Flashback. We were young men in the faith, ready to change the world. We knocked on doors, talked to people on street corners, picked up hitchhikers and were always ready to give a defense.

A dynamic duo.

But then things went bad for him. A marriage that dissolved far too quickly. She left him tattered. He got the house, but she took his heart. A ruined reputation and a battered mind, he retreated. The smell of alchohol at 9 a.m. told me everything I needed to know. But still, I loved and pursued.

I tried to pull him from the hole he’d fallen into with persistence and presence. But over time, we drifted. He didn’t want my friendship and I tired of the chase, to my shame.

Did he waste his life? I’ll never know.

***
I’m reading about Samson, the mighty judge of Israel. From his birth he was set apart, but he spent his entire life running away from that calling. He caroused, he slept with the enemy and never bothered to rescue his people.

His destiny was forgotten.

Locks removed, his strength now gone, he was easy prey. They pierced his eyes and tied him to a rope and a threshing stone. Round and round he walked while they mocked.

How many times did he ask the same question while walking that circle of shame. “Did I waste my life? Did I waste my destiny?”

Brought out to be spit on at the fish-god festival, he once again found his God-given strength. Samson, though blind, could finally see. For this man, it took absolute shame and the depth of humility to get him to realize. As he pulled the building in on the enemy hoard, this might have been only he actually lived up to his destiny.

In the end, his life wasn’t wasted.

And as long as I have breath, there’s still time for me.
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