Brown's Daily Word 5-20-10

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Praise the Lord for this beautiful day. It is going to brilliant and balmy. The trees in the church and the parsonage grounds are green and the leaves are plentiful. The birds are singing and making a joyful noise unto the Lord. There are so many spring birds back in the area, having returned from their winter feeding grounds. I see from my study, a couple of Canadian geese grazing in the fields, appearing non-hasty and unhurried. The Lord blessed us with beautiful Wednesday evening gathering.
The Wednesday gathering often becomes a time feasting, with lots home made foods and desserts and, best of all, the Word of the Lord. Sunita called yesterday and shared with us that flight was delayed on the tarmac for hours on Tuesday. The delay would cause her to miss her connecting flight in Amsterdam, so she postponed her trip to the Republic of Georgia. Her next trip is to Ethiopia in a couple of weeks.
As part of the daily readings I am reading from 1 Samuel. My mom told me about Hannah and baby Samuel when I was 3 years old. The story of Hannah and Samuel has been imbedded in my heart ever since that time.
There are life challenges that cause us to feel barren. To be unemployed with no solid prospects of employment, and you have no money, will certainly make you feel barren. In the ministry we, at times, feel barren. Whether we experience childlessness, loneliness, joblessness, or anything else that we desperately seek, it is true that if we live long enough we all experience barrenness. To be barren is to be put on hold by God while everyone around you is being blessed by that which you desire with all your heart.
In 1 Samuel 1 we encounter barrenness, a common motif in biblical tradition. Hannah, the wife whom Elkanah, loved was barren. Barrenness is a problem frequently encountered by the matriarchs in the book of Genesis. This is kind of ironic when you consider the fact that God promised Abraham that his seed would multiply and be as numerous as the stars in the heavens. Abraham loved his wife Sarah but she was barren until God finally opened her womb and blessed them with Isaac. Isaac loved his wife Rebekah. She comforted him after the death of his mother and he loved her with all his heart but she was barren until God finally opened her womb and blessed them with twins, Esau and Jacob. Jacob loved his wife Rachel, so much that he served her father Laban for seven years to earn her hand in marriage, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her. When the seven years were up Jacob demanded Rachel be given to him in marriage but Laban tricked him into marrying her older sister Leah. Jacob loved Rachel so much he worked for Laban for another seven years so that he could marry her. That’s a lot of love to work fourteen years just to be able to marry someone but Rachel’s womb was closed. Leah gave birth time after time but Rachel remained childless. Leah bore Jacob six sons and one daughter before God remembered Rachel and opened her womb.
Samson’s mother was barren before the LORD opened her womb and blessed her with a son. So, when we encounter Hannah, and understand that she was barren, we come to expect a couple of things, based upon the barren women who proceed her in Biblical history: (1) We can expect her to get pregnant, which she did and (2) We can expect her to give birth to a significant biblical character which she did.
Hannah was a remarkable woman. She lived in a dysfunctional family situation but never allowed her dark circumstances to determine her conclusion. As was typical in Israelite culture during the times of the judges, because his wife, Hannah, was barren, Elkanah, her husband, took a second wife named Peninnah.
Hannah reacted with bitter anguish to her barrenness and the constant teasing from Peninnah. No amount of comforting offered by her husband could relieve her pain. Elkanah gave Hannah a double portion of meat but that was no comfort – she wanted a child. Elkanah would say to Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons? But, that was no comfort – she wanted a child.
Her heart broke with longing, so, in desperation on a yearly pilgrimage to the Tabernacle, Hannah silently poured out her grief to God. Eli the priest saw her moving her lips as she prayed silently and he thought she was drunk. Eli may have thought Hannah was drunk because it was not customary to pray silently in the temple in that day and age or I don't know maybe he thought she was drunk because it was common for drunen people to enter the sanctuary in those days. (If you read the book of Judges you will discover just how immoral the people were of that day and if you open your eyes you will discover how close our current day society resembles the society Hannah lived in).
Hannah, however, was not drunk and after convincing Eli that she had been praying out of her great anguish and tremendous grief Eli responded as any good priest or pastor should respond when they encounter someone who is petitioning God to remove their barrenness. Eli responded by saying, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.” Hannah embraced Eli’s response as affirmation of her petition to God. She got up wiped the tears from her eyes and went home with a new attitude. She was no longer downcast because she knew in her heart that God was going to turn her barrenness to blessedness and He did!
The LORD remembered Hannah and opened her womb and she conceived and gave birth to a son. She named Samuel, saying, “Because I asked the LORD for him.”
I don't know why and perhaps I will never fully understand in this lifetime why God never seems to do things the easy way. God could have just blessed Hannah with a child the first time she prayed for one years earlier. Yet, God reminds me if there is no barrenness there can be no blessedness!
In Christ,
Brown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qp11X6LKYY
Today in History.
1530 German reformer Martin Luther wrote in a letter: 'God's friendship is a bigger comfort than that of the whole world.'

1690 Death of John Eliot, 86, colonial missionary to the American Indians of Maryland. Eliot arrived in America from England in 1631; by 1663 he had translated the entire Bible into the Algonquin Indian language.

1754 Columbia University in New York City was chartered as King's College, under sponsorship of the Episcopal Church. The institution adopted its present name in 1896.

1878 William R. Featherstone died at the age of 32. A Canadian Methodist who spent his life in Montreal, it was Featherstone who authored the hymn, "My Jesus, I Love Thee."

1937 Following a lifelong call to establish a worldwide evangelistic ministry to children, missions pioneer Jesse Overholtzer, 59, founded Child Evangelism Fellowship, in Chicago.