Sometimes waiting becomes grieving when hope is deferred. Sometimes it feels like we are buried under our thoughts for what we hope for. I was discussing this with the Lord recently and I had this mental picture of me choking on my own longing. I don’t want to be known as someone who could not move my eyes from the desire of my heart to look at the glorious image of God in front of me everyday.
Psalm 37:4 says “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
Keeping bitterness from your heart starts with having God as the center of it.
God is the one who places desires in our heart for us to fulfill in our lifetime. In partnership with God the desires of our heart can become a legacy for our life.
Going to the start of 1 Samuel, we see that the beginning of the story of the prophet Samuel started with his mother Hannah. Who was barren because, as the bible puts it, the Lord closed her womb (1 Samuel 1:5).
Hannah pressed in, pleaded, prayed, and hoped for a child year upon year. But it is a process to see a hope turn into reality.
So this is what I gathered from the life of Hannah and her fierce faithfulness.
THE ENEMY WILL TRY TO PROVOKE YOU OUT OF FAITHFULNESS
Hannah’s husband Elkanah had a second wife who provoked Hannah relentlessly for being unable to bear children while she had many. Similarly, the devil will try to steal your joy by making you firstly compare your reality to others. Comparison is the quickest way to kill your hope.
What did Hannah do? She wept and would not eat. And in some cases, we do need to fast through it. Fasting is a way to remember who the Lord is, what he has done, and saying with your actions that you know he is faithful to do it again.
THE REFLECTION OF YOUR FAITHFULNESS
Like Hannah, go up faithfully to the Lord’s house to ask. Those who don’t ask don’t receive. Sometimes we get so caught up in our thoughts about what we want that we forget that we haven’t yet prayed about it, yet we pout about
the fact that we are stagnant.
But, when we pray we lean on the strength of the Lord. Psalm 107 talks about how when we call to the Lord he rescues us. In Psalm 107:30 it says, “They rejoiced in the silence, and He guided them to the harbor they desired.” Our longings are quieted when God’s hand touches our bleeding hearts. He guides us to the place of peace in the faithful waiting.
THERE IS A RIGHT TIME
God knows all things and has a good time table. God waited until Hannah came to a point of making a covenant with him to give her a child. She told him that if he would give her a child, she would commit him to the Lord’s house for all his days. Could you imagine the life of Samuel, and David, if he wasn’t raised in the house of the Lord?
God knows what it takes to bring our hearts back to him. And when we give to the Lord that which we cannot make happen on our own we give up the right to bitterness. Giving up our dreams to God is freeing in the way of it is HIS burden that is easy, and HIS yoke that is light.
BELIEVING THE YES AND AMEN
What God says will come to pass. When he said let there be light there will be light. When he opened Hannah’s womb she had a child. What God sets out to do is accomplished.
But there’s that nine month period where you don’t actually see the baby.
When people question your promise, it is a reflection of your faithfulness to speak of His faithfulness. Speak of the testimony of the Lord even before it happens. For it is faith that is counted as righteousness. Part of Hannah’s prayer is “The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.” 1 Samuel 2:3
God will remember you. In Isaiah 54:1 it says “Woman, be happy! You have not had any children, but you should be very happy. “Yes, the woman who is alone will have more children than the woman with a husband.” This is what the Lord says.”
And remember that when you receive that which you have pressed it for to give it back to the Lord. Hannah, once her child was weaned, brought Samuel up to the house of the Lord to live. There will always be more fruit when your promise remains with God then when your promise remains with you.
“Then Hannah prayed and said; ‘My heart rejoices in the Lord; in the Lord my horn is lifted high. My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance. There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you, there is no Rock like our God.’” (1 Samuel 2:1-2)
Remember your faithfulness sings a song of praise to the Lord. As long as my dreams may live may I continually keep them before God.
All my prayers for your journey of faith, hope, and love.
Coral Faith.
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