We have all enjoyed those times of great pleasure and comfort. The family is together... no one is sick... everyone is getting along with one another…needs are met…and you simply are enjoying abundant goodness. However, we have also experienced a different picture than that:
Bills that cannot be paid
An unwanted health diagnosis
A car accident
Relational conflict and turmoil
Sudden circumstances, like these that happened to me over the last 30 years:
Your young child falls 5 feet and lands headfirst on a rock
Your young child cuts themselves .5 centimeter from the main artery…and you live over 40 miles from the hospital
Your baby needs surgery to remove an unknown growth
Your baby is hospitalized with pneumonia in the PICU
Your teenager falls off a horse and has a severe concussion impacting normal functions for over two weeks.
You lose your job and feel unsuccessful
Your doctor wants “tests” done, and he is looking for cancer
What happens between the comfortable and the uncomfortable times? What do you do when life turns upside down and you realize you cannot fix the situation?
The presence of personal STRUGGLES clarifies & intensifies my need for God.
So, what steps ought you take to help deal with your struggles? Let’s learn from how Hannah and her family deal with personal struggles in I Samuel 1.
1. Realize the urgency of your need (1:6-10)
Your need is for… God.
The Lord had not only kept Hannah from getting pregnant (1:6), but Elkanah’s other wife would taunt Hannah year after year over her lack of children (1:6-7). Hannah’s husband also added to the situation. No doubt her sorrow over no children had gone on for years and her husband had heard her sorrow over and over again. In I Samuel 1:8, Elkanah expresses his frustration and lack of empathy toward his wife. By this time in their story, he can only reason from his own viewpoint. He is offended at her discontentment as though she is blaming him. Hannah is literally grieving, mourning the absence of her own children. So, one person in the house is constantly taunting her and the other person in the house is offended by her grief (seemingly because it makes him feel uncomfortable).
Hannah was in a pretty toxic home life situation! Hannah eventually came to understand that only God can meet her needs. What is it about God that only He can change your situation?
HE is the way - John 14:6 - Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
HE is the light in darkness - John 12:46 - I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. The struggles in our home life can often seem so heavy and dark and that cannot see the next step we ought to take. It is the Lord who helps us navigate these dark times. The Lord will use His word and other people to help guide us, correct us, and support us. Increase your daily time in God’s word and seek out godly counsel to talk through the struggle. (Hint: Godly people will seek God in prayer with you and they will use God’s word to guide their counsel.)
HE is the One who loved/loves me - John 3:16 - For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
He is my reason -- Galatians 2:20 - I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Your urgency is…Desperate
John 15:5, “for without me you can do nothing.”
John 6:63, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing”
2. Run to the only One who can meet your need (1:11)
It wasn’t until years of toxicity in her life that Hannah gets desperate about her struggles. Sometimes we have to get pretty low before we can see the light coming through the cracks in the walls around us. Hannah turned to prayer with total abandonment and Eli thinks she is drunk.
“What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use—men of prayer, men mighty in prayer.”—E.M. Bounds
GOD is my hope - Psalm 42:5, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.”
GOD is my protection – Psalm 46:1-3, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.”
GOD is worthy - Matthew 4:10, “Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
3. Rehearse to godly men the burden of your need (1:15-16)
Hannah turned to Pastor Eli for help. God will use others to help guide you, correct you, and support you through those dark times. Sharing your burden with other godly men and women will help you. The key is to be certain you are sharing your burden with a GODLY person…not just another person you think will sympathize with you or merely agree with you.
Transparency!
II Cor. 8:21, “Providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.”
Counsel!
Proverbs 11:14, “Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.”
4. Rejoice to the Giver of your need (1:20; 2:1-11)
God is the One who allows the need. Think about Job…Job 2:3 and Jesus in the wilderness or on the cross.
God is the One who is at work in you to meet the need. Romans 8:28-29; James 1:1-6.
God is the One who asks for our trust. Proverbs 3:5-8, Psalm 71:1
God is the One who delivers. Be encouraged as you study the immense amount of deliverance declared throughout the Bible! Consider Jonah from the whale…Isaac from Abraham’s knife at the altar…Joseph from his prison…the Israelites from the Egyptians…the disciples from the stormy seas…and you and me from our own sin’s judgment! He can deliver you and me in our need as well!
Sometimes God’s deliverance is…
Deliverance from pain but not from the ailment
Deliverance from the constant trial, but not freedom from all trials
Deliverance from unrest, but not the trial
Deliverance from all trials because you or I are called home to heaven
In its early days, Dallas Theological Seminary was in critical need of $10,000 to keep the work going. During a prayer meeting, renowned Bible teacher Harry Ironside, a lecturer at the school, prayed, “Lord, you own the cattle on a thousand hills. Please sell some of those cattle to help us meet this need.” Shortly after the prayer meeting, a check for $10,000 arrived at the school, sent days earlier by a friend who had no idea of the urgent need or of Ironside’s prayer. The man simply said the money came from the sale of some of his cattle! (Source: Today in the Word, Moody Bible Institute)
What are the personal struggles in your family right now? Sometimes we handle those personal struggles unsuccessfully with the same things we have always done. Some such examples are ignoring the struggles or tolerating them and hoping things will change, choosing a solution that has not worked in all the years it has been used, accepting defeat as the norm, or embracing manipulation and intimidation to get what we want. It is time to try something different to experience more of what God intended our home life to be like! REALIZE how urgent your need for God is, RUN to Him like He is your best help possible (because He is!), REHEARSE your struggles with godly believers to receive godly counsel, and REJOICE in how God delivers you!
The Lord is Psalm 86:15, “But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.” The presence of personal struggles clarifies and intensifies our own need for the loving, gracious, patient God!