The message came in and I read it twice.
“David I had offered to help and then months went by without hearing from you. I am sorry, but try to take that as a life lesson. If someone offers to help don’t let that offer get stale. I have no hard feelings, and wish you the best!”
No hard feelings. Just the door, closing with a smile.
I had gotten this connection through a friend. Reached out in the fall, got on a real call, and he told me to circle back in a week. I circled back in six months. I don’t know what I expected.
The honest thing to say is I’ve known about this part of myself for a while.
Growing up I was good enough to earn a roster spot on whatever soccer team I wanted. Every single time. What I could never seem to do was keep it. Not because I got worse. Because I stopped trying to get better. I arrived, settled, and assumed that being there was the finish line. Then someone who wanted it more took my spot the next season, and I was confused about what happened.
I could talk my way into any door. That was never the problem. The problem was that I’d knock, get it open, step into the doorway, and forget to actually walk through. Because I had an uncanny ability to knock long enough that most doors eventually opened again, I never learned what it cost me. The lesson kept getting deferred.
This time it didn’t. The owner of the house gave me a goodbye and meant it.
The story that came to mind was Samson’s.
Not the version where Delilah is the villain. The actual one. Samson was given something extraordinary. Strength tied to his Nazirite calling, a gift with a covenant underneath it. And he lived inside that gift long enough that he stopped treating it as sacred. He pushed the edges. He got closer and closer to exactly what he’d been warned against. He assumed nothing would change because nothing had changed yet.
That’s the logic of complacency. It borrows against the future using the credit of the past.
After Delilah cuts his hair, the Philistines move in. The text says: “He awoke from his sleep and thought, ‘I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.’ But he did not know that the LORD had left him.” (Judges 16:20)
That’s the terrifying part. Not the betrayal. Not even the haircut. The fact that he didn’t know. He woke up expecting yesterday’s power to still be there, and it was gone, and he couldn’t tell.
His downfall wasn’t one catastrophic choice. It was a long series of small ones, each feeling harmless, each moving the threshold a little further. Samson’s greatest enemy wasn’t the Philistines. It was his own comfort with being gifted.
I don’t have luscious hair to be cut off. What I have is a phone and a message box I didn’t use when I should’ve. Same principle. Same blindness. The opportunity sat open for six months and I assumed it would keep sitting there.
Here’s the part that gets me.
God had no hard feelings either.
In prison, blind, grinding grain for the Philistines, Samson’s hair starts to grow back. He cries out to God one final time. And God answered him. Gave him his strength back. No hard feelings. Just grace, extended to a man who had wasted the gift and paid for it and was asking one more time.
But the lesson had come too late. Samson’s final act brought the house down on everyone inside it, including himself. God answered the prayer. The consequences were already locked in.
My connection had no hard feelings either. Wished me the best and meant it. The grace was real. So was the closed door.
The lesson cost Samson his life. It cost me a connection. Those aren’t the same thing and I’m not going to pretend they are. But the structure is identical. The gift was there. The window was open. And by the time I understood what I had, it was already gone.
The next connection, the next person who says circle back, I’ll circle back when I said I would. Not six months later. Not when it’s convenient.
When I said I would.
P.S. _____ if you’re reading this please give me a second chance!!!