To hear this Morning Devotion, please click Faith in the face of evil
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I’m both amazed and not surprised at how easily some people do evil things to others.
Of course, I understand that everybody has a bad day here and there and we say or do something unkind.
It’s entirely different thing, though, when one maliciously seeks to crush the spirit and plans of somebody else.
That’s evil.
When I see a believer who has faced such torment, or is facing such now, I am stirred to pray for that person and to ask if there is any way that I might help.
It breaks my heart for the one being wounded and it boils my blood toward the one doing the wounding.
Perhaps you have the same reactions when you see evil in action.
Thankfully, a number of believers are able to transcend that evil by means of their deep faith.
They keep their eyes on the Lord and their trust in His will and their hopes for His blessing, no matter what trash the evildoer is talkin’.
I was given this morning a great role model for faith in the face of evil. Her name is Hannah and she’s described in the first chapter of I Samuel. She would later become the mother of the godly prophet whose ministry was foundational to the restoration of Israel from a dysfunctional glob of sinful, confused tribes over to at least a semblance of a unified people.
Hannah provides a wonderful example of keeping one’s eye on the Lord even though Satan is pulling out all the stops via the wicked words of another.
What Hannah faced before she was blessed with the birth of Samuel was horribly hurtful.
Yet, she didn’t allow that hurt to crush her faith.
Long story short? Hannah’s husband Elkanah had two wives, Hannah and one unnamed by the Bible. The other wife gave birth to several children. Hannah didn’t because she was barren.
It’s bad enough that it was a social scar to be barren in those days, far more so than now.
The other wife made the matter worse by frequent provoking of Hannah in order to irritate her (I Samuel 1:5-6).
The other wife REALLY crossed the line into evil, I believe, when she carried on with the antagonism and intentional wounding whenever Elkanah took the family to church in Shiloh.
The mean-spirited words were constant during the trip to the tabernacle and Hannah would eventually start crying and stop eating.
It’s hard to believe that someone could be so mean, so wicked.
But it happened. And it still does.
To Hannah’s credit, she didn’t quit on her faith just because of the faithlessness of another.
Instead, she pressed into the Lord even more, according to the verses that followed.
I encourage you to read I Samuel 1 in order to gain inspiration from Hannah’s faithfulness and God’s eventual blessing in the face of wickedness.
There are a variety of applications from this account, even if you aren’t facing physical barrenness.
You might be facing some mean-spirited hassles that seem geared toward eroding your faith in God and your desire to attend church.
Don’t give up, my friend. Do all that you can to deny Satan the satisfaction of seeing you do what he wants — to quit on your faith.
Instead, commit yourself — no matter what — to giving God the satisfaction of seeing you do what He wants — to grow even stronger in your faith.
If Hannah could do what she did, then you and I can do what God is calling us to do. We can trust Him and wait patiently on His blessing, no matter how many sticks and stones the enemy throws our way
As always, I love you
Martin
