Devotions by Meredith

Persevere—Don’t Give Up

I Samuel 1:5 KJV “But to Hannah he, (Elkanah, her husband), would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, although the Lord had closed her womb.”

Did you catch that? Our verse tells us that God closed her womb. We’re here today to tell you don’t give up! Don’t settle, cry out to God. God not only gave her Samuel, but five other children also. Guard your heart. Refuse to complain in your thoughts and words. The enemy seeds thoughts of discouragement. He can’t read your mind, but he watches to see how his seeding thoughts will affect you. Will you take the bait by dwelling on them and eventually speak them? Don’t forget God’s promises to you! The enemy of your soul would bait you to feel sorry for yourself or buy into the thinking that your promises and desires will never come to pass, but the devil is a liar. Hannah persevered in prayerful intercession, even to the point where Eli, the high priest thought she was drunk. It isn’t so much what others may think of you, that you’re fanatical in your desires, or that you should just settle for the way things have turned out in your life and try to be happy. No, Hannah had a God-given desire to press into Father God for a son. Apparently, it was the heart of God to give her this son, Samuel. Samuel actually was a prophet, as well as was called to be a priest. Prophets are the ones who anointed kings, and as we read the Word of God, we see that it was Samuel who anointed Saul, as king of Israel, and later on he also anointed King David. There was a great call and purpose over Samuel’s life. Hannah faithfully, as her promise to God, brought Samuel to the temple, where he was raised by Eli, the high priest. It was the heart of God for him to learn from childhood through manhood, to know the voice of God and to live and dwell in the temple. Some commentators believe that Samuel’s sleeping area was even near the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant. What a place to grow up near! The very Presence of the Lord! None of this would have happened if Hannah had given up, had given in to the persecution and taunting of Peninnah, Elkanah’s other wife, who had given him many children. Hannah could have succumbed to self-pity and depression over her unfortunate circumstances of life. But no, she earnestly sought the Lord, and He heard, and He answered. She would not give up!

Pray your heart today and every day. Pray until you have emptied it of every trying thought and concern. We serve a great God who hears and answers prayer. He knows His plan for your life. He knows the many blessings He has in store for you. Know this—the enemy of your soul does not want you to have these blessings. His desire is that you live a life of defeat and failure. Not so with Father God. Pull yourself aside and cry out to Him even as Hannah did! Don’t give up. Psalm 25:12 tells us, “Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way He chooses.” Father knows how to work in the dealings of your life. He will do it in the way He chooses. Press into Him today, Lean hard. Cry your heart out before Him and be ready. Watch to see how He will move and answer prayer on your behalf. 

What about you? Are you struggling in areas of your life where you truly desire answers from the Lord? This devotional is for you today. Hear the Word of the Lord and press into Him. He really cares and will answer you as you wait on His timing and His way.    

Don’t Look Back

Isaiah 43:18, 19

18 Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. 19 Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.  

When I was a very little girl, around four or five years old, my mother was sorting through my clothes to determine what still fit me and what could be passed down to another little girl. I remember sitting on the floor as she went through my drawers, opening one and mauling through each piece, and me feeling distressed about it. It isn’t that I don’t like change; I just don’t want to give up, move on, or let go of the present and the past. I never realized how deep this ran in me until I was much older and had to transition into another season and change in my life.

As my mom pulled out a pair of flannel-lined pants, I felt something like a vise go around my little heart. Oh no, not my favorite pants! I knew I no longer could fit into them comfortably, but they were my absolute favorite pair! I remember mom gently saying, “But Meredith, don’t you think another little girl would really like to wear them? They’re so nice and warm.” Common sense was trying to press into my brain, but my emotions were fighting right back. These were my favorite! I had good memories of the cold winter days I had spent wearing them and how they had kept me so cozy warm, riding on the back of my grandpa’s workhorses as he drug timber out of his woodlot. Or the days of those snowball fights in the deep snow piled up in front of our Maine home. It wasn’t necessarily the pants as it was the memories, those precious memories I still cherish to this day.  

I grudgingly released my flannel-lined trousers into my mom’s hands knowing she would see they went to a worthy wearer. This is what I am finding I need to do with past seasons God is prodding me to move on from—release them into His careful hands. There’s a line in the song, “New Wine,” that resonates in my spirit—“I lay down my old flame to carry your new fire today.” The anointing of yesterdays will not do for this season. It was right and good for that past season and fit perfectly into our lives, helping us grow and enjoy those days. Now we are told by Isaiah to not remember the former things or consider the things of old. Yes, we remember, but I think God is saying don’t dwell on them; don’t get stuck in them. Cherish them and those you shared life with, yes, but move on with the Spirit of the Living God whose ways are perfect, whose timing is perfect and who makes our way perfect. Behold, He is doing a new thing. It will spring forth and you don’t want to miss it.  

What about you? Are you stuck in a past season in your mind and emotions? Can you seek God to make you a new wineskin to carry new wine, new anointing for this day and time? He has such wonderful, powerful plans for you, and you don’t want to miss them. Let’s let go and move forward with the Lord today.  

The Mysterious Way of God

I Samuel 1:5 NKJV

“But to Hannah he, ( her husband, Elkanah), would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, although the Lord had closed her womb.”  

What a sad thing to have happen to a woman who really would love to have children! Yet, our verse for today states that it was the Lord who had closed her womb. I love Hannah’s posture before the Lord—she simply would not give up her intercession and pulling on the Lord for a child. I Samuel 1:7 tells us that this barrenness went on year by year, and that she would go up to the House of the Lord weeping and fasting. I Samuel 1:10 says, “And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish.” The story goes on and tells us she made a vow to God that if He would give her a son, she would give him back to her. Eli saw her and approached her, thinking she was drunk. Upon understanding what her crying out before the Lord was about, he prophesied in verse 17, “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition which you have asked of Him.” Wow! I love when God speaks so directly to us!  

Hannah did not realize she was not only contending for one son, but God gave her five more children. Hannah’s whole personality is revealed to us here. The story goes on to tell us that when she had Samuel, she praised the Lord with all her heart, from the very center of her being.  

Not only did Hannah press into the Lord with her petition for a child, but she did it under extreme pressure. I Samuel 1:6 tells us, “And her rival, (Peninnah), also provoked her severely, to make her miserable, because the Lord had closed her womb.” What a gal! I want you to be miserable, and I want to gloat over you as you are! Isn’t that just like the enemy of our soul today? Attack and then watch you suffer under the pressure of the battle, taunting you to cave in and give up. But God…heard her desperate intercession and opened her closed womb.  

Maybe you have something closed to you in your life. Maybe it’s a job, or a relationship, or having a child, etc. Do you feel to ask for the tenacity of Hannah and press into God for His answer and direction? Daniel 2:22 says, “He reveals deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, And light dwells with Him.” Be bold before the Lord today. Ask Him about the deep things that are on your heart. Maybe, like Hannah, He is waiting for you to press into Him with all your heart. Who knows, maybe He will relent as He did with Hannah, or maybe He has another powerful plan for your life that you don’t know about yet, but maybe He would be willing to shine light on what it is for you presently. He is the God who hears and answers prayer, no matter what the enemy has thrown at us, God knows how to bring breakthrough. What seems impossible in the eyes of man, is not impossible with God. He knows the way for each one of us. It is a good way, a prosperous way, a healing way.  

Are you ready to press into the Lord like Hannah? Lay it all out at His feet. Tell Him all your thoughts and feelings about what it is you want to bring to Him. He is a good, good father. He is listening and will answer in His time and in His way. He knows what is best for each of us. I love Him so!

You Know All About Me

Psalm 139:5 TPT

You’ve gone into my future to prepare the way, and in kindness You follow behind me to spare me from the harm of my past.

What a powerful verse! I have a very hard time taking this thought completely in. How does this loving Father go into my future and prepare His way, His plans for me, and yet in His gentle kindness follow behind me to spare me from the harm of my past?! Often when I look back over my childhood, I get a remembrance of myself as a little girl with bouncy, blonde donut curls, wearing a little navy-blue jacket and matching navy-blue skirt, with a prim little white blouse underneath the jacket, standing at a sacred altar in a tiny country church in Exeter, Maine. This is my first memory of me, a young, single digit little girl experiencing and aware of the Presence of the living God. I don’t know what brought me to such a young awareness of Him, other than the thought that my dad was dying with Lou Gehrig’s disease in my fourth and fifth years of life. I somehow occasionally can feel from this memory, hot tears cascading down my child cheeks, finding a path of release as they rolled down, unstoppable.

 I lived and daily saw my dad suffering, seemingly pasted to a wheelchair. My Mom taught me at this young age, how to blink his eyes and move his hands, arms and feet to keep the blood flowing, seemingly normally. One funny memory I’ve remembered with a smile, is that my mom sat my dad out on the lawn in his chair; it was my job to watch over him as best I could. Somehow, the wheelchair brake was not pressed down in brake position, and Dad went careening down across the sloped lawn. like a runaway western stagecoach. It wasn’t a long distance, but a bit of a ride, nonetheless. I ran after him as fast as my little legs could go! Upon slowly coming to a stop, I quickly started scouting him out, perusing his helpless body as best I could; upon checking his face, there was a merry glimmer in his beautiful brown eyes. He had enjoyed the ride and the rise it had gotten out of my mom and me.  

At first remembrance of this occurrence in my childhood, there had been days of a simple mourning of what could have been, what should have been with my Dad. Yet as God has loved me through this memory and many others, Abba “following behind me to spare me form the harm of my past,” He has helped me reframe portraits of pain, even though I have been seasoned with a great lack of skill and wisdom to know how to heal. Abba has poured in the wine and the oil into my soul, cleansing, healing and making me into the daughter He has intended me to become. 

Yes, our Father goes ahead of us and carefully and thoughtfully prepares His way for His own, yet still follows us from behind knowing, remembering and diligently watching out that His healing power over sad and hurtful memories have healing salve applied. Yes, there are scars, yet they are not full of deadly poison to embitter us into ugly defeat, deep sorrow, and ongoing pain. He has put a song in my heart that vibrates with His great love and care for me, yes, little ole me, from my youngest memories to my elder years. What a good, good Father He is to me!

What memories does God want to heal as He’s coming up behind you? Will you allow Him, yield to Him today? I pray that you will. He has not only good for your life, but “best.” Trust Him today.