And Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he bowed with all his strength, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life.
Samson's story is mostly a mess by this point — broken promises, bad choices, strength he squandered on the wrong things again and again. And it ends here, blind, mocked, chained between two pillars, with one final prayer and one final act of strength that costs him his own life along with his enemies'.
What's uncomfortable and honest about this ending is that it isn't a clean redemption. Samson doesn't get his old life back. He doesn't get to undo what he wasted. What he gets is a final moment where his strength, however flawed the man carrying it, still accomplishes more than his entire life before it.
Maybe your own story feels more like Samson's than you'd like to admit — years of wasted potential, choices you can't take back. This isn't a verse promising a tidy ending. It's a much stranger promise: that even a badly spent life isn't necessarily disqualified from one last, real act of purpose.
If you've assumed too much wasted time disqualifies you from anything meaningful left, Samson's ending argues otherwise.
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.