From a Deeper Place

Hannah suffered from three places. First was the place of torment. She had a rival—a woman who taunted her severely to provoke her, often reducing her to tears and enflamed resentment. Second was the place of pain. She could not bear a child, which ate at her soul as she felt God’s withholding hand.  Not even the encouragement of her loving husband could ease the ache she carried. Third was the place of misunderstanding. Eli, the priest, mistook Hannah’s silent prayer in her anguished worship. He saw her moving lips and thought she was drunk. Instead of investigating, he scolded her and told her to stop drinking.

Meditation
1 Samuel 1:15-16—“No, my lord,” Hannah replied. “I am a woman with a broken heart. I haven’t had any wine or beer; I’ve been pouring out my heart before the Lord. Don’t think of me as a wicked woman; I’ve been praying from the depth of my anguish and resentment.”
 
It is this third place of misunderstanding that we want to examine. Beware of observing people and quickly concluding their condition. Instead of asking questions to gain understanding, we utter statements based on our assumptions. Like Eli, we prematurely chastise moving lips without seeing broken hearts. We camp on the ground of what we observe and utter sanctimonious pronouncements, and instead of causing good, we inflict deeper pain on the one suffering. 
            
Often when people are broken before the Lord, the immensity of their grief has far deeper roots than we comprehend.  They are coming from a deeper place embedded with torment, pain, insecurity, and misunderstanding, and that place tears at their fiber, rips away their joy, and robs them of hope. 

It is in the deeper place that God does His most notable work. While stripped of all considered fair, when raw in emotion, the heavenly Father remembers: a child is conceived, a broken heart is restored, and faith is honored. The Hebrew word for remember is zākar, and it can mean “to employ your hands and feet and lips to engage in whatever action that remembrance requires.”[1]  When God remembers, it results in action. When Joseph asked Pharaoh’s cupbearer to zākar him as he was set free from prison, he said, “Do something to help me get out of here! (Genesis 40:15).

If you are in that deeper place, take heart, God sees you, and He will remember.  If you see moving lips refrain from judging. Meet Hannah at her greatest place of need and hold her with that precious love that comes from understanding. Pray with her.  Remember her!  Something to think about . . . in reveration! 
             
Inspiration
“God will advise through you with the direct understanding of His Spirit; your part is to be so rightly related to God that His discernment comes through you all the time for the blessing of another soul.”—Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest

©2023 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals go to www.firstcause.org and click on the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box.  Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed, subject to the inclusion of this copyright notice.      
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)


[1] Bird, Chad. (August 20, 2016). The one Hebrew word you don’t want to forget. https://www.1517.org/articles/the-one-hebrew-word-you-dont-want-to-forget