Every Morning — September 11, 2026: Three Hundred Foxes and One Terrible Plan
Strength without wisdom just burns things down faster.
Key Scripture
Judges 15:4–5 (WEB)
"Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch in the middle between every two tails. When he had set the torches on fire, he let them go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks and the standing grain, and also the olive groves."
Devotional
My people, I need you to picture this scene properly before we continue.
Samson. Three hundred foxes. Torches tied tail-to-tail. In broad daylight, or maybe by night — either way, somebody had to catch each fox one at a time, ehn? Not one, not two. Three hundred. If you've ever tried to catch even one confused chicken in your compound, you understand the level of chaos we're talking about here.
And after all that stress, wetin Samson do with the foxes? He didn't sell them. He didn't cook pepper soup. He tied torches to them and sent them running through the Philistines' farmland, burning up their grain, their vineyards, their olive groves — everything.
Na so Samson dey solve problem.
This man had strength wey no be small thing — God-given, supernatural, undeniable strength. But strength and wisdom are not the same currency, and this whole chapter is proof. Samson's story keeps going like this: something offends him, he retaliates in the most dramatic, over-engineered way possible, and the cycle of revenge just keeps growing bigger.
Sound familiar?
Maybe not with foxes. But you know that one message you typed at 1am, finger shaking with anger, ready to press send and destroy a relationship in one paragraph? That's Samson energy. You know that decision you made — quit the job without a plan, cut off the whole family over one comment, burn a bridge you'll need later — just because your emotions were louder than your discernment in that moment? Also Samson energy.
Proverbs warns us plainly: "A fool vents all his feelings, but a wise man holds them back" (Proverbs 29:11). Samson had the anointing. He didn't always have the restraint.
Here's the part that should really slow you down, though. Samson's foxes started a fire he couldn't control. It burned the Philistines' crops, yes — but it also triggered more retaliation, more death, more destruction, spiraling far past what Samson probably intended when he first got angry. That's what unwise strength does. It rarely stays contained to the size of the original offense.
I'm not writing this to condemn anger. Anger itself isn't the sin — Ephesians even allows for it: "Be angry, and don't sin" (Ephesians 4:26). But there's a wide gap between righteous anger and Samson's fox-and-torch method of handling every offense.
The good news buried in all this mess? God still used Samson. Flawed, impulsive, reactive Samson still shows up in Hebrews 11 among the heroes of faith. God's ability to use you was never fully cancelled by your worst decision — but that doesn't mean the fire you start won't still burn something down first.
Before you tie the next torch, ask yourself: am I about to solve this, or am I about to burn a field I'll need next season?
Prayer
Lord, forgive me for the times I've let anger design my next move instead of You. Give me strength that comes with wisdom, and help me put the torch down before I light something I can't undo. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Dig Deeper
Judges 15:1–8
Proverbs 29:11
Ephesians 4:26–27
Hebrews 11:32
Reading Plan
Today's Reading
Judges 15
Proverbs 29
Ephesians 4
Today's Thought
Strength will always draw a crowd. Wisdom is what keeps it from burning the wrong field.
From Every Morning — September 2026 by Margaret Nwakaego Usio.