I loved learning about Deborah, Gideon, and Samson in this past week’s reading in the Bible for the Come, Follow Christ lesson from my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This video about the reading, below by Rhonda and Ferrell Pickering, was wonderful. I learned so much from it.

Here’s are a few gems of what I learned:

Deborah: how wonderful that we have her story in the Bible. The Bible doesn’t have many stories of women so we have to cherish each one when we get it. It’s just so cool that we have this example of Deborah, a prophetess. It’s cool that she sat under a palm tree to be available to whoever wanted to come talk to her and get counsel. I had never noticed that in the Bible before. I love what Heather shares about her over here.

Gideon: as I read about him this week, I wondered aloud to my children, “Why is his seeking for a sign from God OK when we are told we shouldn’t seek signs?”

As it says on this page, from an article in the Ensign:

“Another significant aspect of the Lord’s signs has to do with seeking or asking for signs from the Lord. The scriptures contain stern warnings about the foolishness of asking for signs as dramatic proof from the Lord in order to believe in him. For example, the Savior repeatedly rebuked sign-seeking leaders, saying, ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign’ (Matt. 12:39). Sherem and Korihor were smitten by the power of God when they said, “Show me a sign” (Jacob 7:13–15; Alma 30:48–50).“

My answer came in Rhonda and Ferrell’s video above. They say that it’s not OK to see a sign to confirm God’s existence. Then they say it’s OK to seek a sign to know the will of God, like Gideon did.

Samson: I finally realized the significance of Samson’s story as I talked about it with my children this week. It’s not his hair that gave him his strength. He got his strength from keeping covenants with God. When he broke those covenants, he lost his strength. It’s always important for us to remember that we are nothing without God. Our only strength comes from Him and keeping our covenants with Him.

This past week I’ve had an amazing thing happen that I’ve prayed for, for months. It’s a huge blessing that I’ve been looking forward to and pleading to God for. Of course I can’t prove it, but I believe that this blessing came to my family because we have kept our covenants. I am so grateful! It’s not to say that we won’t have bad things happen to us if we keep our covenants, but we will always have God’s strength to help us get through them, when we are faithful to our covenants.