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Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Using Our Problems For Good
Chapter 1 of 1 Samuel tells the story of Hannah, who was grieved because she could not have children. (If you have a Bible, turn to 1 Sam 1 and read the story.) No one understood her intense grief - her rival provoked her, her husband could not understand why she was sad, and even the priest who saw her praying for a baby thought she was drunk.
Hannah prayed before God with great anguish and promised that if God gave her a son, she would give him to the LORD for all the days of his life - a difficult decision, because every mother wants to be close to her children, not separated from them. However, having a son was so important to her that she was willing to give him up to God. And God heard her prayers and enabled her to have a son, Samuel, whom she really gave to the LORD after he was weaned. And although she did not know it, because she was generous in giving to God, God went on to give her 3 more sons and 2 daughters! (1 Sam 2:21)
We each read this chapter before we came, and were asked to sum up what we had learnt from Chapter 1 in one sentence.
Joanna: "Give God the first/best thing that you want, even if it means everything to you." (and even if we don't expect anything in return, God gives us even more back)
Yenchin: "God uses circumstances to transform our hearts." (Hannah's desperation led her to seek God and promise to dedicate her child to Him, which led to the birth of Samuel, who when he grew up led the Israelites back to God and prepared the way for King David. A nation was transformed because God had used one woman's problem to raise up a leader!)
Chee Keen: "God answers our prayers and gives us what we want." (only God can really understand our heart's desire when the people around us don't understand why we want something so badly)
Hsia Pin: "Desperation, dependence, and devotion leads to God's answer."
Shaun Oon: "God can do the impossible."
Chee Kit: "Don't poke fun at other people!"
Eng Keat: "Prayer leads to peace."
Shaun Chue: "God can use anyone" (even Hannah, a woman, in a time when women were considered 'low class')
Tim: "God can use different methods to turn us to him."
* * *
All these points tied in with Eunice's teaching...
1. God has a habit of using our personal problems. In Hannah's case, it was a difficult and hopeless situation - she was provoked by her rival, and even her husband could not entirely understand her frustration.
- Troubles often turn us to God when all other human methods have failed.
- Troubles are opportunities for us to forgive people.
Hannah had to learn to forgive her rival (who made fun of her), her husband (for being unable to understand), Eli the priest (for misunderstanding), and maybe even God, whom she might have blamed.
2. God gives us what we want provided that our will and God's will is together (John 15:7 - "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.")
In this case, Hannah wanted a son, and God wanted a boy to walk with Him to turn Israel around. The two were in accord, and God granted Hannah's wish.
3. God's peace enables us to go through life even when our problems have not yet been solved - it's through prayer and coming to God that we find that peace. That's how important prayer is! (Philippians 4:6-7 - "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, that transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.")
4. Breakthrough leads us into deeper and richer praise of God. (see Hannah's prayer in 1 Sam 2:1-10.)
5. We should challenge ourselves to give the first and best to God.
* * *
Personal Impact
This was a very meaningful teaching to me (Joanna). I shared that whenever I read stories like this which contain imagery of barrenness and bearing children, I am always reminded of my own struggles with my desire to write poetry. For various reasons, I was convicted by God that the path I should take in life was to study to be a doctor. Foremost among these reasons is my wish to spend my life doing something that will be helpful to others in a way that has meaning for many people, not just for a select 'enlightened' few. Also, I do not consider myself a very good writer and often feel 'barren', like Hannah, unable to produce writing of the quality I admire.
Nevertheless, for many years, I struggled with my wish to be a great poet like the poets whom I loved to read (Shelley, Yeats, Auden etc), and had much difficulty reconciling myself to a life which was not devoted to poetry. It was a vicious cycle, because I felt that as I did not write well, I should not choose to devote my life to a venture which may never succeed, and yet because I was deliberately starving my poem-writing side, I would never get better! My love for poetry, and the fact that no one around me seemed to care for it to the same extent and just could not understand and did not even read, caused me enormous grief all through my adolescence and continued to haunt me despite the distance I had placed between us. Like Hannah, no one could understand exactly why I was sad.
Fortunately, God sent me a Christian friend who faces the same struggles with the piano (he loves to play the piano, but for years had also been pretty tortured by the same artistic problems which gave me so much grief). Over MSN, he said something that touched me a lot - "For me, I use it to play for God, coz I know that He will listen, otherwise wasted". These words really pierced my heart, because I had already come to the conclusion that if I spent my life writing artistically good poems about my own feelings which no one would understand, it would all be wasted - but if I wrote things for God rather than about myself, and succeeded in pleasing Him, then that was the only way it wouldn't be wasted, as He is the only audience who can fully understand, and the only one whose opinion really matters! As my friend said, "God will read your poetry if it's for him".
The thought that God would read my poetry even if no one else did was of extraordinary comfort to me (like Chee Keen observed, God knows what we want - and He alone has the capacity to fulfil our deepest longings, because only He can understand them). For the first time I properly understood why someone like George Herbert (a great poet who, at the age of 18, resolved to write poems about nothing but God, and did so, producing some of the most beautiful poetry ever written) would have made a resolution to dedicate his poetry to God alone - literally giving up the best of one's life to God.
When I realised this, for the first time in almost a decade, part of me that had always been grieved and restless finally found peace. I resolved to "tithe" part of the poems I should write from now on to God - perhaps the first poem that I write each month, perhaps one out of ten? - and God spoke to me too, giving me confidence that as I start writing for Him, the way I write will also be changed by this new discipline, and changed for the better. My desire to produce 'something beautiful' has now been changed to the desire to produce 'something beautiful for God" - because, "otherwise wasted"!
The Hannah story was a vivid confirmation of this for me - that it is important to give up the best of oneself, the first, and one's everything - for God, just as Hannah gave up her firstborn son. And God didn't just take Samuel and leave Hannah with nothing, but blessed her richly with many more sons and daughters. What a wonderful confirmation of the generous love of God!
the alleged @ 3:15 AM
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