God's Strength Made Perfect in Our Weakness

          The Bible is replete with stories of men who have come to the end of themselves only to call upon God and see his strength revealed at the last moment.  Why does this happen more often than not?  And why does God seem to derive a certain pleasure in bailing us out just in the nick of time?  It is because he wants us to be in a position of humility or meekness (not in a bad way) so that we can see just how faithful he is towards us.  As a created being with free will we have a way of exalting ourselves to the "highest heavens" and to make monuments to ourselves to last forever!  Take the re-building of the twin towers or the site of 911 disaster, a very very sorrowful experience for this nation and a humbling one at that as we had never been attacked on our own soil before but still there is an ability to want to "rise again" from any ashes we have experienced with out any reservation at all. There is a need to "keep on truckin" and shake off the bad feelings so that we can continue on our way.  And without calling on our God for help.  In that posture there is always a certain danger because we leave out the one who desperately wants to be with us and show us his favor.
     Take for example the story of Samson and Delilah.  Here we have one of the strongest men on record a Nazirite from birth and consecrated to God.  His great strength was attributed to his uncut locks and his devotion to his God and he knew this from his earliest times as a young man.  He confounds the Philistines over and over again, sets two fox tails on fire, releases them in a field and proceeds to burn up hundreds of acres of field and defeats a thousand men with the jawbone of an ox.
     Yet when in a moment of weakness he tell a deceiver and his lover what the secret of his strength is and is taken captive, blinded and put in prison attached to a millstone for a period of time long enough for his hair to grow out and long enough to be humbled by his God.  Samson calls out to his God one last time and in a" pure heart" so that once again the Philistines would see the acts of the Israelite God and a God who personally intervenes on behalf of one who was not only humbled and restored but shows a nation just how close a God he is to an individual. God will move nations on the account of one man.
     Rome was an exalted empire, yet was unable to defeat  the early preachers of the Gospel  who followed one who preached "The Way."  Christianity still stands, Rome has eaten the dust, like so many other empires before it.
     The Word will not pass away not one Jot or tittle until the fullness of times and we see again the risen Christ descend to the Mount of Olives with the glory of his Angels at his side.