The Challenge of Holy Kings (entries open)

The Challenge of Holy Kings

samson.anime-pillars.goodsalt



This is a 8 week challenge that focuses on filling your life with good; it is open to people of any religious or spiritual affiliation.

The challenge is themed based on men from the Bible, and includes requirements such as “pray every morning this week”. However, it is up to you how you pray.

There will be four phases, each taking two weeks.

  • SAMSON, know your strengths and weaknesses.

  • DAVID, trust God and avoid dangerous places.

  • SOLOMON, stay diligent.

  • JOSEPH, act quickly.

Why these four? All four of them faced the same problem we do. Three failed, one succeeded. Each of them has a lesson for us to learn.

Edit: after reading Keats comment and reevaluating how much time I have been spending on my phone, I decided to follow suit and reduce my electronics use, and in turn adjust the requirements.
To stay in the challenge, post updates about your progress only when needed, but minimum twice a week.

Reply below if you want to join.

The challenge will officially start on Sunday, and I will post details for each week as we go.

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I’m willing to join. I’m curious about what you bring for the David part to this challenge.
Based on the scriptures, he was always a man I looked up. Even though he has fallen to his desires towards Betshabe, he was able to repent and later he was mentioned as “a man after mine(God) own heart”.

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I don’t think I would be eligible or this challenge since my new goal is to take a break from my phone (including rewire) on the weekends, so I couldn’t check in every day.

Interesting concept though, @keepFighting

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The Challenge of Holy Kings
Samson, Part 1: Know Your Weaknesses

Alright @Duran , here we go!
I started this challenge because it was something I wanted to do, but wanted some support along the way. Since there weren’t many people who showed an interest in it, I will leave the challenge open in case anyone would like to join as it goes along.
Our first king isn’t actually a king, but he was a judge in Israel. Samson is thought to be the strongest man who ever lived. How could it be that a man of such great physical strength fell prey to his enemies?

This week’s challenge is to learn your weaknesses.

About Samson:


Samson had two great weaknesses. The first was his lust for women. The three main stories of him getting into a lot of trouble all revolve around him going after a woman.

The next was his hair. Samson’s parents were not able to have children, but an angel told them that there would be a miracle, that they would have a son. He gave them some rules for raising the boy, one of which was: “no razor shall come upon his head”.

There are a few stories written about when Samson gave in to his weakness. Here are two of them, summarized:

Samson went to another city to see a prostitute. Because of this, enemy soldiers were able to ambush him. That time, Samson was able to get away.

The next time he sought a beautiful woman she was offered money to learn Samson’s weakness. She blatantly asked him, “how can we bind you, to AFFLICT you?” Samson lied to her three times, and three times she tried to take away his strength so soldiers could capture him. It was no secret what she was trying to do. She asked him “daily with her words, and URGED him, so that his soul was vexed unto death;”
Samson was facing real, live urges, but stayed and tried to fight instead of leaving.


After he told her the truth, she had his hair cut off. The soldiers captured him, “put out his eyes” (or blinded him) and forced him to work in a prison.
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What is your task this week?

Use the stats and journal section of Rewire Companion to asses your greatest weaknesses, and post them here. Then, pay attention to that throughout the week to see more closely how your weaknesses affect you. We will build on this in part 2.

Next week we will focus on the strengths of Samson, and identify some of our own.

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I am most likely to relapse on a Thursday evening, when I am alone for a long time, and/or when I am aimlessly browsing the internet.
Thursday my busiest, most stressful day at work with the most deliveries. From this I know that a weakness of mine is stress.
When I am alone for a long time? Looking back I can see that this is bad, but being lonely makes it worse.
Aimlessly browsing the internet? That’s self-explanatory. But I realized that I do this when I am bored.
Being stressed, lonely and bored? That is like cutting my hair off in front of the enemy soldiers.

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First of all, I need to tell you, that 2 days ago I broke my 97 day streak and relapsed. Thank God I prayed to be forgiven and was able to stand up and don’t fall for the chaser effect. I still want to partake in this challenge of yours and my next streak is going to be infinitly long. I hope you can accept this.

I can totally agree on boredom as a weekness in my case too. I don’t think I need to explain it.
Another great weakness of mine is how I let my thoughts loosen up. I tend to have desires which mostly is a natural thing to happen, but I let my thoughts slip on that too much. I should regulate my thoughts in a more disciplined manner. I should avoid spending time on such desires even if it doesn’t start out as sinful desires.
The next weakness of mine was and still is, but it started to change lately is how I don’t love and respect myself. My self esteem was far off from reality. I hated myself, degraded myself. I didn’t had any positive opinion about myself. I learned a few lessons which already changed me in this matter, but this still is a weakness for me.

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I’m sorry to hear about your relapse, but I’m glad to hear you avoided chaser effect and are going to keep trying.
This challenge focuses on learning and adding good things to our lives, so while the goal is always to not relapse, doing so will not remove anyone from the challenge, only failing to complete the weekly task.

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The Challenge of Holy Kings
Samson, Part 2: Know Your Strengths

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Samson’s greatest strength was very literal- physical strength. His first recorded feat of strength was to kill a lion with his bare hands.


He must have also been very fast, agile, or set some good traps. Another time he caught 300 foxes, tied firebrands to their tails and set them loose. The foxes ran through the corn of his enemies and burned all their crops.

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Very soon after, he was attacked by an army of his enemies, and used the jawbone of a donkey as a club to kill a thousand soldiers.

Samson’s next great feat of strength came when an ambush was waiting for him outside a city. Samson ripped the city gates off their hinges and carried them away.
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Samson’s last feat of strength came at the expense of his life. Because he gave in to his weaknesses, his enemies were able to capture Samson. At a massive celebration inside a huge building, they tortured Samson in front of the crowd for entertainment. On the roof alone were about three thousand people.
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Samson prayed to God and asked to be given strength one final time. He put one hand on each of the two main pillars supporting the building, “and he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell”.

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Because addiction destroys us both mentally and physically, it is important to heal both. Next phase we will focus on David and some mental healing.

This week, with the focus on Samson, the challenge is about your strengths.
First, just like last week, use the features of Rewire and some self-reflection to identify your strengths. Are you great at setting goals? A good reader? A good friend? What are things that you are good at, and specifically those that help you stay true?


Next, to learn from the strength of Samson, set a physical exercise goal. This can be weightlifting, yoga, jogging, swimming; any goal regarding physical exercise. Choose something that will push you, but is attainable, then post your goal here.
For example: Each week for the next seven weeks I will run 6 miles.
You must be accountable to your goal, and post an update on your progress at the end of every week.

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Alright, thank you.

For quite some time it was hard for me to say anything good about myself, but as times went on and I started to seriously want to change, I realised the goodness of change. I started to love it and practice it. I’m at a state where I’m brave enough to say, that even though I fail many times, the ability to change has became one of my strenghts. In paar with this, one thing was mentioned by my boss long ago, which I consider a strenght ever since and it is related to change as well. It is that I’m not afraid to learn new things. I consider learning a life long thing, not only for school years in life. Unfortunately my tenacity is not as good, so there’s a lot of challenge in it for me, but I won’t give up on this.

I already started working out to loose weight. I started calorie counting and exerciseing last summer. I lost 23kgs so far. My goal is to be around 80-85kg. At the moment I’m around 105. In the past 2 weeks I couldn’t do my exercises, because the room in my rented flat had to be painted, so there was no place to workout. I have and elliptical trainer which I use. I finished the painting and organised the room yesterday. I planned to start to do my exercises once again. I used to do 1 hour of running on the elliptical trainer and weightlifting and a few exercise with my body weight(like push ups, sit ups).
Is this acceptable for the challenge? I think the best way to measure it is time, but if you want I can measure km-s. An hour of elliptical is around 5km running for me with my current speed. 5km is like 3.1 miles. I used to do it 6 times a week.

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Thank you for your honest and thorough response. Not being afraid to learn new things is a great attribute.
Yes, that goal is great. The idea is that it is something that you can measure and track. And nice job on dropping the kilograms, thats awesome!

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@Duran sorry I have been so slow to keep up with my own challenge.
@drago , you are more than welcome to join. You can complete the tasks for this week (and the previous) if you would like, or just start with the next phase tomorrow.

For this week’s task, honestly I have been putting off responding to it because I do not want to be accountable for the exercise part. Yeah, that is a lame reason, but here I am on the last day finally committing to it.
My exercise goal is to run one mile, and do 100 push-ups. I will run one day and do push-ups the next, alternating for the rest of the challenge.

To respond to the prompt, what are some of my strengths?

In a way it was comforting to read this, because that’s how I felt too. And still feel a lot.
I like to think that I am creative. I like learning, too, so I think that’s a good thing. As far as attributes that help me avoid PMO, I thought about it but can’t identify one. I’ll update later if I can recognize something.

Thank you for your participation, we’ll be back again tomorrow with David!

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yes , i will start from tomorrow’s task…

:+1: :+1:

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No issue. To be honest, I’m quite impressed with the effort you put into this challenge even thou the lack of participants. I totally understand that it can demotivate when there is little interest. But be sure I’m honestly glad and gratefull for what you are doing here.

Also the members of this forum and app are mostly Indians, so mostly not christians. Even those who are christians tend to not admit it. So they won’t join. I feel bad about this, because looking into these people’s lifes who you bring to us to exemine is quite meaningful and there is a lot to learn regardless of anyones belief or religion. Btw not only the Bible mentions these people. Some of their existence is even confirmed by atheist historians as well.

Nevertheless, please keep going, I’m here for you.

Welcome! Glad you join.

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this is good challenge …because whenever i got urges my motvation was joseph… and the first sermon i told in my family was about him…really need look into the lifes of this king… so much to learn…

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The Challenge of Holy Kings
Phase 2, King David

@Duran @drago Here we go!
In order to end on a positive note, the first week for each king focuses on the weakness. Don’t worry, David might sound bad today, but his good attributes will get their due attention next week. This week has two tasks, so prepare yourselves!

The story of King David’s demise begins on a very interesting note:
“at the time when kings go forth to battle, David sent Joab… but David tarried still at Jerusalem.”
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This leads to the first task for the week. Why did David stay back? Why wasn’t he at battle with his armies?
To build upon phase 1, identifying our weaknesses with Samson, review your previous post. What things lead you to relapse?
I said that aimlessly browsing the internet was one of mine. So, this week, (and from now on) I cannot do that.
Post a list of those things again, committing that you will avoid being in those situations in the first place. You must be AT WAR against addiction. Whatever it is you do to keep yourself at war is up to you, (feel free to write your ideas), but do not allow yourself to wait around for trouble. Last week we set goals for exercise; this is one way we are proactively going to war.
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David’s story continues: “And it came to pass in eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself.”
I.e. @david stayed up late and browsed on his phone, and saw a triggering picture.
“And David sent and inquired after the woman.”
I.e. @david did an internet search for more.
“And David sent messengers, and took her… and he lay with her.”
I.e. @david masturbated and relapsed.

Sound familiar?

Now, I have often wondered, what on earth was that woman doing, bathing in a place where people could see her? Not only that, but there isn’t any record of her resisting the sin. BUT, that doesn’t make what David did right.

On the same note, what are those girls doing? Why are they treating their bodies the way they are, and POSTING it on the internet? If only that content wasn’t there…
BUT, that is no excuse for us. It doesn’t justify us treating our bodies (or anyone’s) so disrespectfully. Nor does it justify us immorally viewing or responding to their actions. The fact is, the content is there. What are we going to do about?

The second task for this week is to get off, and stay off of the roof.


First, write in your post what time you will put your phone away (or computer or tv or other electronics). Then, identify a way that you can stay off of the roof. Not being on your phone when you are alone? Uninstalling social media? No more games on your phone?
Again, how exactly you do this is up to you. Only you know what goal will most accurately address your needs and situation. Set a goal for yourself, post it here, and be accountable to it.

To recap:
Don’t stay at home. Go to war. Review the things that tend to lead to relapse, commit to avoiding them, and think of how you will proactively go to war.
Next, commit to a time when you will ‘stay off of the roof’, and put electronics away. Also, identify the things in your life that tend to be lurking from a view up there. Commit to getting rid of them.
Don’t forget to post an update sometime this week on how things are going with your exercise goal!
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It is the time when KINGS go to battle, GO TO WAR THIS WEEK!

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Can I join this challenge I am on day 7 streak

My SC:-- 9axd8u

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@karthik_5113 welcome to The Challenge of Holy Kings!
@Duran @drago let’s do this!

I have come to realize that I didn’t think this challenge through well enough when I started it. I’ve run into a lot of things I hadn’t planned for. So, I thought through what I could and am revamping our challenge. Entries will still be open for anyone who wants to join; I will explain more about that below.

Our challenge is to become a holy king!

To complete the challenge, you must accomplish 8 tasks. Complete the necessary requirements each day, and post at least once during the week on your progress. Each task will be based off of a King from the Bible. However, the challenge is open to people of any religious affiliation. Starting now, people who join the challenge will be welcome to do so at the current point; but, to earn the title of a Holy King, they must go back and complete each of the 8 tasks.

If you miss a task one week,
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you will be able to try again the following week. But, you must post at least twice to record your progess.

If you fail two weeks in a row, you must restart at the beginning of the tasks (as a squire)

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The first phase focused on Samson and strength.

The first task was to:

The second task was

Phase two focused on David.

The third task (edited) is only to:

Since none of us completed the third task, we will have to repeat that this week before moving on to part two of David.
Remember that to stay in the challenge we must post at least twice during the week!

Best of luck to everyone, and may your battles fare well.

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@keepFighting sorry about not keeping up with the challenge in the past week. I’ve been struggling in the past few weeks. I had to paint in my flat and it didn’t do as I planned. It was exhausting mentally and physically too. After that I was not able to get back as I was before and I even relapsed a week ago. I still didn’t feel all that good, but I feel like charging now, because I had a few days off of work and I was able to rest a bit.
Now I try to get my mind together and do as it is written:
“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works” Rev.2:5 KJV
I’ve been able to turn away from my sin and leave it behind, so I repent and do it again.
There is one thing I just realised lately, which is really on my nerves. This is is quite just like King David. I have a very good friend, who has a really beautiful wife. I consider her as a friend also, but I realised that sometimes I look at her with temptation. This is something I want to lay down to the Lord and be freed from it. I write it down to you because it is also written that if we confess it helps to heal. So thank you for being here!

Regarding this week’s task

For me, the biggest problem with my computer was usually right after I arrived home from work, around 5-6pm. I was usually already tempted while I was still driving home. Just the tought of arriving home alone with my pc and the girls online made me exited. Thank God, this bad habit has been erradicated duering my 58 than 98 day streak. It didn’t came back ever since. I replaced it with the habit of doing exercises as soon as I arrived home. But I still used to sit in front of my pc till I go to sleep, but usually playing with friends some online game, or just chatting on discord. It is a bad habit, because I should go to sleep sooner. My plan was to go to sleep at 10pm, but usually I go to sleep after 11pm or later. I always wake up at 6am, so I’m not used to have enough sleep. I try to change this.

That’s it for now.

No worries, life is crazy sometimes. I’m glad you were able to get some rest to get back at it.
That sounds like a tough situation with your friend’s wife, but it is good that you recognized that so you can steer yourself in a good direction :+1:

One reason I love this app/community here is how well I can relate to people, understand others’ experiences and learn from them. I have had this exact same problem. It got really bad after my wife left me so I was alone when I got back from work. Unfortunately I haven’t moved past this yet, the urge and temptation are still there, but I am giving in less often.

My goal is to put all electronics away at 10:00. I try to go to sleep at 10:30.
As for that exercise goal, I still have to run my mile today, but I will get it done.

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