I went to have blood drawn the other day and was allowed to keep the tourniquet. It was just a blue piece of elastic material about an inch wide. The technician merely tied it around my arm until the pressure caused my vein to make it easier to draw blood. It made me think of how we react under pressure. When we are put under pressure to either say things or behave in ways that go against our beliefs, can we break when the tourniquet is tightened? That's what happened to Samson [Judges 16]. Samson married a woman outside of his faith and she became his tourniquet. She pressed and pressed to know the secret of his strength until he finally gave in. Delilah fell to bribes "See if you can lure him to the secret of his strength and we will pay you eleven hundred skeleks of silver [v5]." When that didn't work, she whined "You have made a fool of me come on tell me [v10], then she tried the "how can you say you love me when you won't confide in me [v15]" and finally she applied the last bit of pressure neeed "With such nagging, she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death [v16]" That did it. She tightened the tourniquet to the point that "blood was drawn" and Samson broke. All along, the "Spirit of the Lord" had come upon Samson. Unfortunately, he allowed the pressure to get to him and before he knew it, the enemy came upon him and and "he did not know that the Lord had left him [v20]"
We can not allow others to do that to us. We must stand our ground in our walk. Others will make every effort to tighten the tourniquet until we break. We must stand strong and believe that the Spirit of the Lord is with us and if we feel the band around us tighten, remember...In Christ, we have the power to release the hold!
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