“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Prov 13:12
Longings of the human heart run deep. It’s amazing the things men will do just to have what their heart longs for. Longings imply a lack, therefore they are accompanied by pain. The trouble with longings is figuring out what to do with them. What do we do with longings? To relieve this ache, men will do almost anything. Longings test the heart in a way nothing else can.
Some of us take matters into our own hands to fulfill our longings. Sarah wanted a child desperately. God had promised her one. “God just needs a hand,” she probably thought. After all, she couldn’t very well just wait around and expect God to drop what she wanted in her lap. God would help her only if she helped herself. She wasn’t getting any younger. She was getting older, already well past the age of being able to have a child. The women around her already had children. Perhaps she believed God would give her a child, but this whole idea that she should wait on Him to make it magically work out didn’t make sense. Life doesn’t work that way. So she decided to give God a hand and urged Abraham to sleep with Hagar so Hagar could be a surrogate mother.
Her longing was finally fulfilled, right? In her impatience, Sarah settled for an inferior option. She got what she wanted, but it was less than it was supposed to be. Sure, she got a baby. But she didn’t get the baby she wanted, one that was her own flesh and blood. Not that Ishmael was inferior, but He wasn’t really her’s, he was Hagar’s.
God redeemed the situation and brought good out of a bad decision. But Hagar mistreated Sarah and the situation only brought Sarah more pain. Though Abraham loved Ishmael, Sarah never came to feel like Ishmael was her child. And one day she came to despise him and his mother for their mistreatment. So much for having her longing fulfilled. Only after waiting longer did she receive Isaac, her promise from the hand of God.
Hannah was also barren and mistreated as such. Though she had the love of her husband, she desperately yearned for a child. Her husband’s other wife rubbed salt in the wound every chance she got because she had children and Hannah didn’t. She let Hannah know that she was better than her because she was able to have kids. This was not a short season either. Scripture says this went on year after year. Then Hannah’s heart could stand it no more. She wept without stopping and refused to eat. Anything her husband said to try to make her feel better did not work. It didn’t matter. She was childless, there was no comfort he could give her.
What did she do with this longing eating away at her? “In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the LORD, weeping bitterly” ( 1 Sam 1:10). Hannah took her longings to God and poured out her heart to Him in bitter misery. Her faith did not lead her to minimize or deny her pain. She didn’t say, “Well, I shouldn’t be in bitter misery. I should be joyful because that’s how holy people are supposed to be, never sad or bothered by anything. I should just try being more positive.”
She prayed but she expressed her emotions, not denying her misery over not having what she longed for. She did not deny her longing. She also didn’t say, “That’s a selfish prayer. I shouldn’t ask God for a child.” She didn’t force it to happen, like Sarah, or start a baby-war with her rival, like Rachel did with Leah. She asked God and waited.
What did she intend to do once her longing was fulfilled? “And she made a vow, saying, ‘LORD Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.’” (1 Sam 1:11). Hannah intended to give her son back to God.
“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (James 4:1-3). Hannah did not intend to spend her longing on herself. She intended to glorify God through His fulfillment of her longing. After waiting, Hannah received her son. And what did she do when she received her longing? She praised God and thanked Him. She prayed to Him and poured her heart of joy out to Him. Her son was Samuel, one of the greatest men in the Bible.
Our schemes to outwit God and take matters into our own hands, like Sarah, will fail and will more than likely end in more pain. When you have a deep and painful longing, the only thing you can do is ask God. The surrender of it means you give up control. You cannot go into it thinking you will try it God’s way only if it works out like you want it to and if it looks like God’s way isn’t working then try it your own way. You cannot give it to God and keep control. In doing it God’s way, you must give up control over the results. Surrender is unconditional. But He is the best place to put your hope. And when we receive it, it is not meant to be spent on our own pleasures but to be used for His pleasure.
