I culled the above paragraph from a mail sent
to me today. I could feel a tear dropping down my cheek when the email implied
a sense of being forgotten by God. Especially considering this season of the
year when the last month is fast approaching and time seems to have gone by
with little hope of anything good happening.
The possibility of feeling rejected and
abandoned is very high. All the things ever hoped for in 2012 do not seem to
have happened and may not happen. More painful it is when ungodly people seem
to have what they want and are not burdened with all the yokes we carry.
Every victorious woman of faith goes through
times of dryness. These include dryness in every sphere of life. Drought of
trustworthy friend and special person to love is the most excruciatingly
painful to endure. The sense of being alone and unloved is killing. Most of the
time, words alone cannot explain why this should be happening to us at all.
Listen my Sister, the whole of 1Samuel
chapter 1 (Please read) focused on the life of a woman called Hannah. She
married Elikanah but was unable to have children. So her husband decided to
take on another woman as second wife who had sons and daughters. Imagine the
pain of being abandoned for a woman who began making babies like a factory and
she couldn’t. She must have felt emotionally abandoned by the husband, emotional
taunted by the contentious second wife and sadness of heart at the birth of
each of the other wife’s children. Verse 6-7 said
“But her rival
wife taunted her cruelly, rubbing it in and never letting her forget that God had not given
her children. This went on year after year. Every time she went to the
sanctuary of God she could
expect to be taunted. Hannah was reduced to tears and had no appetite.”
Most
painful was the fact that the Bible said it was God who closed her womb in
Verse 5. You may ask why? What has she done? Why did God close her womb? What
was the reason? My answer is God has a bigger plan. God had set her up for a
show of His glory without her knowing.
Did
Hannah fold her arms and rebelled against God? No. Did she try shorter routes?
NO. What did she do?
Hannah,
driven by desperation, pursued God to a place of reckless prayer and weeping
before God. Without dignity or laid down formality she begged God for a son.
She knew she had a destiny that must be fulfilled. She realised the fulfilment
can only be found in God. She chased after God with all fervent prayer of hope
and not of self-pity. She fought to overcome the consuming ache of inadequacy
within herself. She was willing to go to war in order to fulfil destiny and not
live a waste. All the weapon of prayer she used is still available to us all
today.
Did
God answer? Yes, He did. God responded to her. God saw her tears, He heard her
prayers, and He rewarded her faith because He saw the passion of her broken
heart. Hannah’s son, Samuel was the only one we know of in scripture. The other
woman and her children were no longer heard of.
My
sister, only you can develop within you a very passionate zeal to see your God
given destiny come to fulfilment. If you become so lethargic and complacent, if
you put on the coat of ‘it doesn’t matter’, if you become less bothered and just
carry on living, you will read of others breakthrough and no one is ever able
to read yours.
Allow all the present dryness to drive you towards God the
almighty and not away from Him. Away from Him doesn’t cost God anything but may
cost you all the fullness of what He has in stock for you.
Like
the paragraph of the email I quoted earlier, if that is where you are and you
desperately want God to come through for you, inject very serious passion into
your prayer when you get to the place of pouring your soul and your tears to
Him.
Like
Hannah, may you leave your place of prayer in peace. May you find favour before
Him and may your petition be granted you. May your countenance be changed from sadness
to full joy. May you be fed with the food of rejoicing.
May
your glorious end be greater than your former in Jesus name. Amen.
I
love you Sister.
JESUS CARES.
