1 Samuel 1:1-28 Habakkuk 2:3
This week I have been thinking a lot about patience and long suffering. Neither of which I am any good at! The only way you get these gifts is to have to be patient or long suffering in some area of your life, neither is a gift I would wish to have to go through and be tested in such a way so I think I will pass on this if possible. The problem with having to be patient is it takes a lot of faith. We need to have the confidence and the faith in God to know He knows best and His timing is the perfect timing. Something we believe on the whole, we a re certainly taught it as a young Christian. But then there is our close fleshy friend doubt!.
Now I have always been told God answers prayer. I believe it and am grateful to know this. The problem I have is that God can answer in 3 ways.
Yes, you can have it!
Yes but not yet, you have to wait, how long, only God knows (We have already
established I do not possess the gift of patience- Story of wanting a husband).
3. No! Now this response brings out the little child in me who is one step of having a hissy fit and rolling on the floor in the shop when told no it can’t have a chocolate bar (story of Daisy)
Now what does Habakkuk have to do with Hannah?
“For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, it will not tarry”. Key words here;
Vision – your dream your hope what has been promised to you
Appointed – definition decided on before hand
Time – How long!
It will speak – meaning it will happen
It does not lie – don’t lose faith, lose hope, lose heart if God planned it it will happen Though it tarries – even though it takes its own sweet time
It will surely come – you can count on it
It will not tarry! – excuse me you just said though it tarries? Now here is the problem, you might think it is taking its time and is delayed but God does not because His appointed time is not yours! So it may tarry for you but not for Him.
Getting back to our original read of Hannah’s story.
Desperate for a child
Being tormented by her husbands other wife, mocked, made to feel second class, not by her husband but by the other woman, by her culture, by expectations – her own and those around her. This is what the devil does to us.
The Bible teaches us as the church we are the bride. Hence God is our husband. So what is He saying about your need! Situation? Does He imply you are less of a person because you do not have, or is it those around you, is it culture, is it your own perception?
Well Hannah went to the temple again! Every year they went to the temple to carry out their offerings.
Every year it got harder to be grateful and harder to contain her pain and disappointment.
Had she ever prayed before this day? I am certain she did. Had she pleaded, I am sure she did, had she cried, I am sure she did, had she begged, bartered, promised things? I am sure she did. So what was different this time?
God’s appointed time!
You can bet she felt she had been tarrying for years but wow in one prayer, in one fleeting moment of her life, her answer came, yes and now. No more waiting, no more tarrying she gets pregnant and gives birth to not just a baby but the high prize of a son!
When Hannah went into the Temple that day did she know she was just one prayer away from her dream? One prayer away from the answer? Did she know she would give birth to the prophet Samuel?
The name Samuel translates because I asked the Lord for Him!
What if she had gone to the Temple and thought what’s the point of asking? I have asked a thousand times, I have cried I have pleaded and still no child? Would she have had her break through?
When the Angel came to Daniel to deliver a message in response to his prayer and fasting that had gone on for 3 weeks he turns up and says God dispatched me straight away, but there was a battle in the heavenlies and I was held up getting to you with the answer. If Daniel had stopped praying on day 20 would the angel have turned up still on day 21?
Habakkuk in 2:2 says write it down, write on tablets and a herald can r
We need to press in and dig deep and keep praying. Though it may tarry, but it doesn’t, keep pressing in. Now pressing in is not the same thing as trying to give God a hand into making something happen. Sara and Abram did that and created an Ishmael, it did not work out too well.
un with it> What’s he saying, write it in stone. Why? Because we have short memories. Doubt will set in, did God really say? The serpent used that on Eve in the garden, still using it today. But if its in black and white for all to see to remind you of the promise and the hope then you have something to hold fast to, even though it may tarry, but it doesn’t!