Articles

The Responsibility of the Gifted

By: Lorenzo Lowery

The sports headlines of today are full of stories about young men who have squandered their God given talents and abilities. You see, God has gifted these men with exceptional physical abilities that have enabled them to ascend to cultural leadership. Their acquired fame and high profile provides them with a platform through which they can have a positive impact on society.

Similar to Samson, God has given these athletes the means (through their fame & income) to make an impact on the enemies, such as: poverty, illiteracy, low self esteem, etc., that affect the urban communities from where many of them have come. However, like Samson, many of these athletes have wasted their influence on self-indulgence by hanging around things and people whose lives carry the very stench of death. As a result, their fate becomes the same as Samson's - their choices leads to their utter public disgrace and makes a mockery of the good they were assigned to do in the earth.

Samson was incredibly gifted physically. God gave Samson these special gifts so they could be used to accomplish his life's mission - rescuing Israel from the Philistines. However, rather than using His God given abilities to establish a platform through which he could fulfill His life's mission, Samson utilized his power and fame to engage in activities that he was instructed by God (by way of a Nazirite vow) not to do. The Nazirite vow restricted Samson from cutting his hair (the secret of his great strength), being around or touching dead creatures (human or animal), and drinking alcohol. This was above and beyond the Levitical laws that he was required to keep as a Hebrew. However, Samson throughout the course of his life, managed to violate these restrictions by marrying a foreign woman, using dead animal carcasses, sleeping with prostitutes, and even "shackin' up" with Delilah. After compromising himself and being completely disgraced, Samson eventually fulfilled his life's mission but paid a heavy price - he lost his life.

Samson's life is actually a striking parallel to many of our star athletes today. You don't have to be a professional athlete for this to occur though. This happens to men of all walks of life, all across the globe, in academia, politics, business, and our very own neighborhoods. We can all recount the story of someone (maybe even ourselves) whose life has become a tragic testimony of opportunities lost, marked more by failures than successes. God has gifted all of us with various talents and abilities so we can fulfill the great missions in life that he has assigned to us.

Even though, "...God's gifts and his call are irrevocable" (Romans 11:29), the consequences of squandering those gifts are real. Just ask our "heroes" of today, who like Samson, have proven to be morally blind and are desperately seeking a way back to social relevance and significance.