6/30/11

Hannah and Samuel.

Bend has never been so beautiful! I am so thankful for this time I have here to refocus and be refreshed. God is so faithful and so good!

With that said, I have been thinking a lot about these past 10 months in Seattle. I have asked myself a lot of questions. I have asked God even more questions. I know that Jesus has a plan in everything and that he always works all things together for good. So my petition to God right now is this: Show me. I need him to show me some why's. Not for the sake of knowing for my own simple desires, but because he has put it in my heart to ask him. I'm completely rested in the fact that he will answer my questions.

Today, I sat aside the seemingly large-scale questions and simply asked God to give me something new from his word... and boy, did he.

1 Samuel 1 is full of treasure of all sorts and I cannot count the number of times I have read through this passage, knowing that it is for me, in this season and in my life as a whole.

I don't know if you do this, but when I read passages from the bible, I try to figure out where I fit in the story. Am I the sinner, the saint, the crazy person, the brave person, the anointed person, the one who doesn't quite hit the mark... the list goes on. So as I delved into this story once again, I asked the question, 'Who am I?'

Am I Hannah, am I Samuel, am I Eli? I think the answer in Jesus is 'Yes, you are!' The season I'm in, coupled with the way God desires to use me could easily put me in any one of these people's shoes. So my next question was, 'God, which one am I right now?'

There's something significant that happens when you live your life for the moment God has given you, right then.

Immediately, I got a little ahead of myself and assumed that I was the Hannah in this story. She's a girl, I'm a girl. She was waiting on the promise and favor of God, I'm waiting on the promise and favor of God.. it made sense.

I asked God, 'What is my Samuel then?'

If I'm Hannah, there must be a Samuel. Right away I started flipping through the scrapbook of my mind, looking through pages of promises and words from the Lord that had not come to pass, yet. There were many things that I began to assume. Well certainly it must be this, or that. It probably has to do with that situation. It seems like this place or that place would fit in here. I assumed so many things!!

Then, clear as day, God made this simple suggestion:

Before you can have a Samuel of your own, you must learn to be a Samuel at my feet.

This, very quickly, caused me frantically to begin searching again through the first chapter of Samuel.

The reasonableness of my own mind again decided to pitch in it's two-sense. How can I be the Samuel we see in chapter one? He's a baby, and at most a kid by the end of the chapter. Everyone wants the Samuel we see in chapter 3,

"And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground."
(v.19)

But the Samuel of chapter one? Literally the only things mentioned in regards to Samuel is that he was conceived, born, weaned, and then brought to the house of the Lord.

(As if the fact that his conception and birth was not a miracle enough in and of itself.)

I continued to read and reread this chapter, searching for some clue as to why God had said what he said.

I did a little research, and this is what I found:
Hannah was the first to call God the Lord of Hosts.

Lord of Hosts calls to the idea of the Lord of the Battle and the Army. Lord of the Appointed Time. It ropes in words like warfare, service, soldiers, to wage war, a campaign, to assemble, fight, perform, muster, and wait upon.

Samuel was to be a Nazarite. A Nazarite vow ensued 3 things: No cutting your hair, no drinking strong drink (wine), and no touching anything dead. However, only one of these things were mentioned; in v.11, 'No razor shall touch his head.'

No razor to come upon his head gives way to the idea that no fear of man shall come upon him.

The idea of weaning in this specific situation was to allow Samuel to grow in maturity until he had the capacity and ability to serve in the house of the Lord.

Back then, weaning typically had 3 stages: from the mothers milk (at 3 years old), from their tender age (at 7 years old) , and from childish manners (at 12 years old).

As I read these things, God started speaking to my heart.

I found myself in much frustration this past year as I have struggled and strived trying to figure out what God wanted for me and what he was trying to speak to me and how he wanted to use me. I was trying to not only figure out what my Samuel's were, but was subconsciously trying to skip the chapter one version of Samuel in order to get to the chapter 3 version.

Even as I'm typing this, God is showing me how he has faithfully spoken this very thing to me day in and day out up in Seattle, in various ways and forms.

Before you can have a Samuel of your own, you must learn to be a Samuel at my feet.

Samuel grew up, most likely until the age of 12, with his mother Hannah. He sat under her care. She was the one to bring him out of childish ways and into a place where he was capable of walking out and fulfilling the vow that was over his life, to serve the Lord all the days of his life,without the fear of man..

I know that nothing in the bible is there by accident, so I can't help but conclude that the Lord of Hosts is in there on purpose.

In times where I find myself like Hannah, afraid and wondering if God will ever answer my prayers or give me victory, I remember that He is the Lord of the Battle and the Appointed Time.

There are so many gems in this chapter and I am completely overwhelmed and find it difficult to even begin to describe all of the things that Jesus has shown me.

I wrote this down as I was reading,

Jesus is keeping me in his arms and close to him, teaching me and bringing me up, in him, so that when I am ready, he can take me into the house of the Lord and bring a release over my life so that I can be the Samuel whom the Lord was with, whose words never fell to the ground.

I love when Jesus gives me greater revelation of who he is. It's the best in the whole world..

Loving the sunshine,
Elyxis

1 comment:

Katelyn said...

Elyxis, I love this! There is such wisdom and insight in this and it is so EXACTLY what I need to hear, too. What God does with us is secondary to who we become in Him. I think that I'll follow your example and take some time simply to sit at His feet.