Skip to main content

Is Your Faith Unemployed or Is It Actively Working?


Once after a sacrificial meal at Shiloh, Hannah got up and went to pray. Eli the priest was sitting at his customary place beside the entrance of the Tabernacle. Hannah was in deep anguish, crying bitterly as she prayed to the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:9-10 NLT).

Have you ever been in a place where you were sick and tired of being sick and tired? Hannah has. That was the very place that she was in when she cried out to the Lord on one of her yearly visits with her family to the temple. Hannah got to a place where cute prayers were no longer getting it for her. The cute cries were not getting her what she longed for and the glare of people no longer affected her. Hannah needed the Lord and she needed Him immediately. Hannah had a purpose in her that no one could bring forth but the Lord and she understood that. Many of us have a longing, but we are either afraid of it, we ignore it, or we attempt to accomplish it on our own. We don’t consider the Lord or think about the fact that perhaps it is Him that is calling us to a greater purpose and a higher standard to accomplish the goals that He has set for us.  Hannah had to put her faith in action.  She had to pray as if her life depended on it. Hannah had to submit her mind, her will, her thoughts, her biological time clock, her desires, and her heart to God in that very moment; and because of her faith God answered her.
Hannah was under pressure. It was not the pressure to get bills paid or the pressure to be a better wife. Hannah was under pressure by her purpose. She had other people’s lives attached to her call and it was time for her to get moving. Weather Hannah knew it or not, she was called to be an intricate part of God’s plan for Israel. Hannah was at a place in her life where she was not only pressured to fulfill a desire. She was under pressure to fulfill her destiny.
The pressure that you feel is because of your purpose. It is time for you to birth something. Hannah felt the pressure of her purpose knocking at the door. She could no longer do things the way that she did them before. She could no longer sit around and mope. God was calling Hannah to action.
God is calling many of us to action. He wants us to do something with our faith and with the other things that we are believing Him for. We have to move! It is now uncomfortable to be content with mediocre and stagnation. We have to birth what we have been placed on the earth to birth for such a time as this.
I once heard Bishop Td Jakes say “It is not your turn. It’s your time”. It was Hannah’s time for God to release something mighty to her that would be pivotal to the time that she lived in, but she had to get aligned first. I believe that Hannah was saved. I know she prayed, but her motives and her heart were not in position to be blessed. God sees the inner workings of our heart. He knows what we think, how we feel, and why we do things. To be honest, He is not always pleased. We find comfort in saying that “God knows my heart”, but sometimes that is our problem. God knows our heart. He knows that we want more of Him, but we are not aligning everything in our lives to get it.
Lord deal with me. Deal with the inner workings of my life and sift through the private things. I pray for a cry that will reach your ears. Hannah had a cry that you heard. The silent sound that she made at the alter on that particular day was not like all the others. Something in her groaned for purpose. She understood that she needed you to be in the midst of her desires and she was willing to change her heart and her mindset in order to receive you. I believe Hannah’s life changed when she cried a cry of surrenderance. She surrendered her motives to you. Lord help me to be like Hannah. Help me to surrender my motives, my heart, my will, and my desires to you. I pray to do what you have called me to do, how you have called me to do it. I pray to go through whatever it takes to get to you. I pray for a made-up mind to surrender all. In Jesus name, amen.
Releasing everything to God is an open door for blessings to flow through. Hannah was blessed when she released her will and her son to God. She was blessed with other children when she didn’t try to hold the one child hostage. We can’t hold our will and our purpose hostage. We have to give it back to God. We can’t believe that we can fulfill the groanings of our hearts on our own. The groaning will birth a purpose that will achieve more than we ever imagined it would, but we must give it to God.
God raised Hannah’s purpose. He didn’t need her help to accomplish what He wanted to do with Samuel, He needed her surrenderance. Samuel was used mightily of the Lord. Moses was used mightily for the Lord. Moses’s mom had to trust God to take care of what He had given her even when she couldn’t see it.
Trust God with what you can’t see. He his faithful to perform a thing and cause it to come to pass.
Recommended Reading: 1 Samuel 1:9-18, James 2:14-25, Proverbs 3:5-6, Hebrews 11:1, Hebrews 11:6


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Peace Be Still

“ One day he got into a boat with his disciples,  and he said  to them,  “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.”  So they set out,   and  as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake,  and they were filling  with water and were in danger.   And they went and woke him, saying,  “Master, Master,  we are perishing!”  And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm.   He said to them,  “Where  is your faith?”  And they were afraid,  and they marv...

The Process of Faithing It: Trusting Jesus with Your Faith

  “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction” (Mark 5:34 NKJV). Can you imagine Jesus in a crowd? Everyone has a need, but His target in that moment is to go and build the faith of a little girl’s family at the request of her father because they think that she will die. The father is scared, but Jesus was on the way until He felt something. This feeling was different, but powerful. Jesus turns around looking, asking questions, but finds his answer in the form of a woman, standing and looking amazed at what just happened to her. After 13 years of anemia, tiredness, dizzy spells, soiled clothing, and impacted relationships, she is healed.  This woman with an issue of blood had spent all of her money, but decided to trust Jesus with her faith, which was all that she had left. Jesus was not too busy to stop and ask, “Who touched me?”. The disciples reminded Jesus of all the people that were around them, but this touch was different. Some...

Fear Can Not Exist Where Healing is Needed: The Authority of Jesus within Mental Health

“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly”  ( John 10:10 KJV). The people of Gadarenes gave the enemy access to their region, not just a man at a tomb. As a bystander within Mark 5, I’ve seen many parts of this scenario played out in real time. I know the broken heart that Jesus had at seeing this man, and I also know the love and compassion that He had for him as well. The people may have feared the man because of his strength, but Jesus understood and displayed that  fear could not exist where healing is needed . Working within the mental health field, I’ve seen what was depicted by the man at the tomb. It’s not easy, but Jesus removed the cover of what was happening. The Legion of demons  (composed of thousands of demons) thought that they could continue to reign and rule, but the King stepped onto the ground and caused atmospheric shift to happen.  “T...

Keep Your Lamp Filled

  “Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept” (Matthew 25:1–5). Everyone had the same mindset to go to the same place for the same reason. Everyone was on their way, but partial action was taken by five of the virgins. The bridegroom had the capacity to care for all ten. Everyone had a lamp, but everyone did not have oil to see Who they were waiting for. The oil was available, but five virgins did not take the initiative to get more oil. What they had was not enough for the journey they were on. Five of the virgins were wise; they did what was needed to obtain more oil. The other five virgins were foolish, thinking that what they had was enough and that getting...

Let’s Talk About Sex

Tonight, I thought about sex. I thought about the beauty of it and I thought about the reasons that God created it. Sex can be beautiful and pleasurable, but sex can also be very dangerous if you don’t know the truth behind it. As a young girl, no one sat down with me and talked to me about sex. I never got the “protect yourself” talk and I never got a real run down about what people will do just to have sex with you. I lost my virginity at the age of 14. I didn’t even really know the guy, but I thought that I would spend the rest of my life with him because that was the story that he sold me. I don’t blame him, and I don’t resent him for anything anymore, but I wish that I had been wiser and that I understood the value of what I was giving away.  In my 20s I learned that sex is not only physical, but it is spiritual also. I learned what soul ties were and I began to understand why it was so hard for me to break away from people after the “relationship” had ended.   I ha...

My Personal Truth

I  remember sitting on the bus in middle school and this guy who was older than me told someone that when I started having sex I wouldn’t be able to stop. I was always very quiet, but I thought to myself, how could someone who didn’t know me say such a thing? He was in a sense, speaking over me. I was kinda rebellious as a teen. I lost my virginity at the age of 14 and I had already been on most of the depression medications that were out at that time. I was in love with love and that led to a lot of heart ache. I even left home for a little while when I was 17 because my mother found a pregnancy test in my bathroom. It did not look like I would graduate from college. It did not look like I was a smart young lady. It did not look like I would amount to anything, but God saw different in me. I got saved for the first time when I was16. I did not understand God or how he operated. Even when I was saved? I just knew that I was on my way to hell. During that time, I battled depr...

HOPE

I believe that God sends us prophecies to offer us hope. I received my first prophecies around the age of 16. I was pretty aware of how God used his people to speak into the lives of others, but I would always hide at church when God started talking. I used to be afraid of people who had that gift because I was scared that they would know what I was thinking. Many times, although our thoughts are uncomfortable, when God lets you know that HE SEES YOU, there is a comfort in that. Wow, God sees me. I don’t remember who or what the first words were that God used someone to speak to me, but there are still so many words that He has released to me that offer me hope. Hope can be hard to hang on to in the storms of life. There are many times that I feel alone and forgotten, but I have to remember that GOD SEES ME. God will send a word of hope to you to comfort you in the times that you feel hopeless and lost.   The irony in this is that some words may come before you think you need the...

DON'T LEAVE JUST YET !

Do you know that some of us will leave God before we will leave a mate that lies to and cheats on us? Trust me, I‘ve been down that road and I’ve thought about going down it again, but I’m here to say to you don’t leave just yet. We give man so many chances to get it right, but we rarely allow God to shower us with the fullness of who he is. Your pain is for a season. In life we go through droughts, but God will never allow you to go dry and thirsty in the desert storms of life. Hang on to God’s every word in this season. We need to date God and treat him like the people we fall in love with. God wants that time with us and if you give it a chance, it will be so sweet. I pray that we see this sweet side of Christ. I pray that we stay up at night just to talk to him and ask him what he is doing. Wouldn’t it be awesome to blow kissy faces at God and tell him how much we love him and receive his love in return? I pray that we receive the love of the father. We know he loves us, but do...

Because of Who You Are: You Cannot Date Whoever You Want

Some men come as a distraction and not as a covering. Mary could not date whoever she wanted to because of who she was, who she was attached to, and because of the promise that God had given her. Mary carried something so precious on the inside of her and she had to wait for a man that could handle her anointing . Mary had to wait for a king's kid.   A son of a king understands order, discipline , and the covering. Joseph both covered and protected Mary when the enemy wanted to destroy her promise. Ladies, the enemy wants to destroy that thing that God has placed on the inside of you and he will use what and whoever he has to just to make sure that you don't give birth to destiny.     When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.   "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt.    Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him. ...

Baffled by Christ: Real talk/ The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!

I’m always baffled at the stories that my mother tells me about what I was like as a child. From her point of view, I was a mini adult/ care giver. At the age of two I made her sandwiches and I knew the medicine that she needed to take when she was sick. I even remember packing her bags when she had to go into the hospital. I knew everything that she would need or want. I packed her pretty pajamas, tooth paste, bible and other things I don’t remember.  Today, at 28, I don’t like to perform such responsibilities because it is nothing that you can ever get used to, but I would still do them. The baffling aspect is that God has been using me since I was a 2 year old to be a sensitive help mate. When I write, my desire is to tell the truth. I don’t mind sharing certain aspects of my life because I see God in them and my hope is that others can see how God is moving in their lives also. My desire is to ignite the passion of Christ in his people. So many of us are stuck. So many peop...